How do I complete the Gnome Character Map with missing Unicode characters?

I often use the Gnome Character Map accessory to find characters I didn't know, with a view to surprising friends with exclusive drawings. However the program is not complete and lacks some characters like the Mongol or the Birman ones.

How do I install all of them in one time? Notice that I don't care what precise font it is.

Solution 1:

Please note that the Unicode character range is immense; There is no one font that covers all of it (although GNU FreeFont comes pretty close).

If you see empty spaces, or even empty pages, it may be because they just haven't been assigned yet. Those will remain empty until the Unicode Standard utilises them. Even though there is space for 1,114,111 glyphs, but only specific ranges have characters assigned to them, and between those ranges, there may be quite a bit of unused room.

You can get great coverage with the following fonts; Between them, they cover as much of Unicode as is practically usable:

• Linux Libertine (my favourite, → project site)
• Droid (includes droid-fallback for cjk support)
• WenQuanYi Zen Hei (focus on Chinese)
• GNU Freefont (best coverage of any free-as-in-freedom font)

(click these links to install the fonts on your Ubuntu system)

_{(source: fontscape.com)}

Linux Libertine is one that, on top
of covering a massive span of Unicode,
looks excellent and has fantastic
kerning and hinting.

Also, if you don't mind a non free font, there is Code2000, Code2001 and Code2002, which, between them, cover quite a substantial chunk of the Unicode range (97% I think) as well.

For a list of Unicode fonts and their coverage, see Unicode Typeface.

Solution 2:

The program seems complete (at least, it lists the Mongolian script/codepage). But I don't have a font installed that includes those glyphs, maybe that's what you mean? You might have to find a font that includes these.

I think the ttf-unifont package contains most glyphs, but not necessarily beautiful ones, and they don't show up correctly in scripts where letters look different depending on their location inside a word etc.

If you want better quality glyphs, it might be a good idea to install a specialized font for that script and/or language, e.g. ttf-manchufont for Mongolian, or ttf-sil-padauk for languages from Myanmar/Burma.