Home| Downloads| Mailing Lists| Donors| Documentation| Contact
Navigation
Home Downloads Documentation Volunteers Contact Licensing Policy
External Links
OpenType™ Specification OpenType™ Specification for Bangla The Unicode Standard Ankur Bangla Project
News
April 24, 2006
Newly designed website launched
Downloads
Akaash
info | download
Ani
info | download
Likhan
info | download
MuktiNarrow
info | download
Validation
Validate the XHTML and CSS of this page.

Welcome!

The Free Bangla Fonts Project is a volunteer run project dedicated for creating Free, high quality, completely Unicode compliant OpenType™ Bengali fonts. This project aims to be the central resource for getting and developing Free Bangla fonts. The initial aim of this project is to release a full set of Bangla fonts that supports all the major Bangla juktakhars (conjuncts).
We also plan to convert the other existing Free Bangla (non Unicode compliant) fonts into Unicode compliant Bengali OpenType™ fonts. The project works as as a sub-project of the Ankur - Bangla in GNU/Linux and FLOSS initiative.

Aims of The Project

Standards compliance
We aim to be 100% compliant with the existing Unicode 4.1.0 standard. We also strictly follow the Microsoft OpenType™ specifications, and we aim to release a font which would be compliant with the juktakhar standards released by the Bangladesh Bangla Academy and the Pashchim Banga Bangla Academy.
High Quality
We aim for quality, in terms of good looking glyphs and as well as in terms of extensive OpenType™ tables which handle all the Bangla juktakshars that are in use today.
Free Software
Our policy is to work only on Free (sometimes referred to as Open Source) fonts, so that the results of our work can be freely shared by all. Free Software is about empowering users, and about granting them rights over the software they use.

Volunteering for The Project

Since this is a volunteer run project, we are always on the lookout for volunteers willing to donate their time. There are a number of jobs that have to be done, like converting existing fonts into OpenType™, writing documents, beta testing, etc. If you are interested in helping out, please see the Volunteers page for details.

Moreover, if you are an experienced font developer, you may join the project as an adviser. If you would like to help out in that way, then please do join the mailing lists and announce yourself.

Also, if you have designed Bangla fonts, you may consider donating your work to this project. It does not matter what encoding that font uses, since we will just use the glyphs, and create Free Unicode compliant fonts out of that. And of course, you will be mentioned in the CREDITS list, and in the Donors list, and you will be retaining the copyright of the fonts glyphs under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.