DecoType, ACE and Tasmeem: Font technology, Layout-engine and Showcase

Thomas Milo
DecoType
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Tasmeem provides a platform for both modern and traditional Arabic, capturing the accumulated expertise of past calligraphers and typographers as a plug-in to applications such as the Middle Eastern version of Adobe InDesign. For typesetting Arabic Tasmeem is far more versatile than what OpenType can offer.

Thomas Milo is the founder of DecoType, the first in the industry to introduce the concept of intelligent fonts (Ruq’ah 1986) and to develop Arabic script solutions based on thorough research into the Islamic calligraphic tradition. Decotype contributes fonts and Arabic Calligraphy applications to Microsoft Office Arabic Edition and to Adobe PageMaker Middle East, and provides a special interface for Calligraphic typesetting; they provide Arabic fonts for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X and WinSoft-Adobe InDesign ME. For years DecoType worked closely together in research and development with Tradigital (UK, Germany, Egypt), in the context of which DT produced the typeface in which the complete traditions of the prophet (hadith) have been printed. Together with WinSoft all features of ACE were built into InDesign resulting in Tasmeem.