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Hello,

I'm currently developing an online English phrase guide (www.speakenglish.co.uk), which is being translated into a number of different languages.

We are looking to make the site available in Persian and Urdu, and I am therefore researching which fonts would be best to use for these languages.

We would need to use fonts which are Unicode-compatible, and they would also need to be available for free.

My understanding is that Nasta'liq is preferred style for writing both these languages, so if possible would like to make our site available in Nasta'liq.

One font we are considering using is Pak Nastaleeq, which seems to work well for Urdu. Would it be suitable for Persian as well, or is there a font which would work better for that language? Are there any other fonts which we should be looking at?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Chris
www.speaklanguages.co.uk

This is an unfinished project of Persian Nasta'liq. It is in 'working condition' but very buggy. It's even somehow sabotaged in its latest version(!) distributed by Iran Islamic regime government site. It's free. That's the only free Persian Nasta'liq I know.
http://www.scict.ir/Portal/File/ShowFile.aspx?ID=bea5ca36-1fdf-41d4-8818...

Many thanks for your reply. It sounds like the font you mentioned isn't really ready for final use, so I guess we'll have to forget about Nasta'liq for now.

Do you happen to have an opinion about the fonts mentioned on this page?

http://www.farsiweb.ir/wiki/Products/PersianFonts

I also see Tahoma is used on quite a lot of Persian websites. Does that deal with characters specific to Persian correctly?

Cheers,
Chris

Tahoma, don't even get there my friend! Don't let me open my mouth!

If you gave up on Nasta'liq, I suggest XB Zar or XB Niloofar of the following collection:
http://wiki.irmug.org/index.php/X_Series_2

Cheers,
Behnam

OK, thanks for the advice!