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Arabic and Hebrew fonts from Agfa Monotype used in the development of Symbian OS v7.0s Salfords, Surrey, UK, 2 July, 2003 – Agfa Monotype font technology for Arabic and Hebrew has been used in the development of non-latin locale support for the new Symbian OS™ v7.0s mobile operating system. Arabic and Hebrew fonts from Agfa Monotype used in the development of Symbian OS v7.0s . Arabic and Hebrew pose complex questions for developers due to their right to left reading direction; and need for contextual character forms. The Arabic in particular, being a cursive script, can need up to four forms for each alphabetic character and this must be accurately reflected in the manufacture of the font to ensure accurate language representation on-screen. Symbian OS therefore needed to support these characteristics in order to correctly render the scripts on advanced mobile devices developed using Symbian OS. Ian Bezer, non-latin project leader at Agfa Monotype UK, worked closely with the Symbian development team in an advisory capacity to assess the suitability of bitmap or outline font technology together with the character sets and encodings required. “After careful exploration and testing Symbian decided that a bitmap-based solution was most expeditious. Our hand-edited bitmaps allow very clear screen legibility of the complex scripts;” commented Ian. Agfa Monotype delivered a complete set of bitmaps which enabled Symbian to complete the development process. “Symbian is now able to offer developers the flexibility of wider international language support combined with a tried and tested suite of fonts of the highest quality. Our partnership with Agfa Monotype has been of great benefit to Symbian, helping us realise our goal of delivering international language support faster. Their expertise is unique and the quality of their font solutions undeniable.” Said Donald Page, Strategic Product Manager, Synchronisation & Internationalisation Technologies, Symbian Ltd. Developers interested in evaluating Agfa Monotype’s non-latin font solutions should contact Claire Hilliard, OEM Sales Manager at Agfa Monotype UK. Tel: +44 17 37 78 16 21. E-mail: claire.hilliard@agfamonotype.com About Agfa Monotype Corporation Headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., Agfa Monotype Corporation, a Symbian Platinum Partner, specialises in fonts and font technologies for graphic professionals, developers and OEMs. The company is also an innovator in colour and screening technologies for OEM partners. Agfa Monotype Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Agfa Corporation based in Ridgefield Park, N.J. and is part of Agfa’s Graphic Systems business unit. Agfa Corporation is the U.S. subsidiary of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, one of the world’s leading imaging companies. Agfa develops, produces and markets analogue and digital systems primarily for the graphic imaging, healthcare, non-destructive testing, micrographic, and consumer desktop and photography markets. Headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium, Agfa has 40 national sales organisations globally, with worldwide sales of 4.9 billion euros in 2001. Additional information about Agfa Monotype and its products can be found on the company’s Web sites at www.agfamonotype.com and www.fonts.com. About Symbian Symbian is a software licensing company which develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones. - more - AGFA|Monotype Agfa Monotype Ltd, Unit 2, Perrywood Business Park, Salfords, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 5DZ Symbian has licensed Symbian OS to the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Publicly announced products based on Symbian OS include the BenQ P30, Samsung SGH-D700, Siemens SX-1, NTT DoCoMo FOMA F2051 built by Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson P800 Smartphone, Nokia 9200 Communicator range as well as the 7650, 6600, 3650 and N-Gage. About Symbian Platinum Partner Program Symbian Platinum Program members benefit from a range of Symbian products and services allowing members to design highly integrated hardware and software solutions for Symbian OS. The commercial services available to Symbian Platinum Partners include technical support and joint marketing opportunities. Symbian Platinum Partners may also get early access to the Symbian OS Development Kit™, which incorporates source code, test code, internal documentation, kernel and device driver programming interfaces and ROM building tools. More information can be found at www.symbian.com/partners/part-platnm.html