This is a progress report about a project initiated by the Sultanate of Oman. The project aims to display, search and quote Qur’ān text on the web in a typographically stable and orthographically flawless manner, regardless the operating system or the type of web device. The webQuran project will also feature interactive Letter Group Shaping and automatic text Shaping. For this purpose Designers of Computer Typography, also known as DecoType, again designed new computer typography, without fonts.
Thomas Milo is partner in DecoType, a team that has been working on Arabic script technology since 1982, in the course of which they pioneered the concept of Dynamic Font (Smart Font, Intelligent Font). Tom has contributed to Unicode since 1988 and licensed fonts and their ACE font layout engine various companies (e.g., to Microsoft as OLE server, creating the first smart font on the Windows platform). The most comprehensive implementation of DecoType concepts to date is WinSoft’s Tasmeem, a plug-in that turns InDesign in a veritable Arabic typesetting system. In 2009 Tom received on behalf of DecoType the Dr Peter Karow Award in recognition for his fundamental contribution for computer typography.