Uniscribe

Uniscribe is the Microsoft Windows set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text, especially complex text layout. They are implemented in the DLL USP10.DLL. USP10.dll became available to the public with Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.0. In addition, the Windows CE platform has supported Uniscribe since version 5.0.

Although Uniscribe continues to be maintained, with Windows 7 its intended replacement DirectWrite was introduced, which has more features.

USP10.dll

USP is an initialism for Unicode Scripts Processor. The main purpose of Uniscribe includes the following:

  1. arranging input text from the input sequence to visual sequence.
  2. substituting glyphs according to context (e.g. different forms of Arabic characters)
  3. ordering displayed text based on text flow direction (e.g. LTR vs RTL, Horizontal vs Vertical)

Here listed are some common versions of usp10.dll, as well as the methods by which they are distributed.

Features are added according only the "major.minor" part of the version number, the third part in the full version number is used for system target identification numbers for which the DLL was ported by Microsoft, and the last part is the build number on each target system version (which may change within regular system/software updates). Some hotfixes provide upgrades only for specific applications (notably in the Office installation directory), and not suited for use in the Windows system directory (whose version of the DLL should never be updated and is often protected by the system) :

Note that file sizes may vary depending on specific localizations of the DLL (depending on the target system or application for which it was compiled), they are given here and verified for the US-English localization.

Version number File Size File Date Software Bundled by New feature of this version
1.626.7601.18454 (Windows 7 GDR) 626,688 bytes (x86)
801,280 bytes (x64)		 2014-04-25 KB2957509 - Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 Security update
1.626.7601.22666 (Windows 7 LDR) 626,688 bytes (x86)
801,792 bytes (x64)
6.2.9200.16384 74 KiB
 2012-07-26 Windows 8 ?
1.626.7601.18009 612 KiB
 2012-11-22 KB2786400 An update is available that changes the default settings of the shaping behavior for Arabic text rendering in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
1.626.7601.17514 781 KiB
 2010-11-20 Windows 7 SP1 x64 (RTM) ?
611 KiB
 Windows 7 SP1 x86 (RTM)
1.626.7601.17105 611 KiB
 2010-09-30 Windows 7 SP1 (RC) Restore support for unassigned code points[1]
1.626.7600.20796 625 KiB
 2010-09-21 PowerPoint Viewer 2010 (SP1) KB2460050 ?
1.626.7600.20602 623 KiB
 2010-01-07 Microsoft Office 2010 (RTM) Support PR-37: Clarification of the Use of Zero Width Joiner in Indic Scripts;[2] This version supports OpenType on Windows XP.
1.626.7600.16385 628 KiB
 2009-08-04 Microsoft Office 2010 (Beta) ?
612 KiB
 2009-07-14 Windows 7 (RTM) ?
1.626.7100.0 612 KiB
 2009-04-22 Windows 7 RC ?
1.626.6002.22402 491 KiB
 2010-07-11 Microsoft Office 2007 (SP2) Security Update KB2288621 MS10-063: Description of the security update for the 2007 Office suites: September 14, 2010
1.626.6002.18244 607 KiB
 2010-04-16 Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Vista SP2 Security Update KB981322 MS10-063: Description of the security update for Windows Unicode Scripts Processor: September 14, 2010
1.626.6002.18005 607 KiB
 2009-04-11 Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Vista SP2 ?
1.626.6001.18000 490 KiB
 2008-01-19 Windows Server 2008 (RTM), Windows Vista SP1, VOLTSupplementalFiles (July 2008), MS VOLT 1.3 (released July 31, 2008), SIL FieldWorks, Keyman Desktop 7.1 Supports newer OpenType table features; improved support for ligatures and contextual shapes in Indic scripts with simpler fonts
1.626.6001.16510 491 KiB
 2007-04-18Windows Server "Longhorn" (Beta 3) ?
1.626.6000.20581 491 KiB
(502,784 bytes) 		2007-04-19 02:15:55 UTC Windows Vista Hotfix KB936176 FIX: incorrect rendering of fully decomposed characters in NFD form encoded in sequences with more than 2 characters (affects 114 Latin characters decomposed in sequences of 3 codes)
1.626.6000.16386 491 KiB
(502,784 bytes) 		2006-11-02 09:44:03 UTC Windows Vista Ultimate (RTM) DirectX 10? WDDM?
1.626.5756.0 491 KiB
 2006-10-13 Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate (RTM) Supports Oriya and Kannada scripts
1.615.5384.4 484 KiB
 2006-06-17 Windows Vista (Beta 2) DirectX 9?
1.614.5315.0 454 KiB
 2006-03-13 Microsoft Office 2007 (Beta 2) OpenType typographic features?
1.613.5291.0 481 KiB
(492,544 bytes) 		2006-01-04 Windows Vista (Beta 1) Microsoft VOLT 1.2
1.609.5219.0 469 KiB
 2005-08-17 Microsoft Office 12 Professional (Beta 1) OpenType typographic features?
1.606.5065.1 ?
 ? Third-party software Supports Mongolian script
1.606.5078.0 ?
 ? Hotfix for SIL fonts FIX : Combining mark sequences in Latin script may be incorrectly rendered
1.601.5022.8 428 KiB
 2005-01-07 Microsoft Sinhala Enabling Pack for XP 0.42 Supports Sinhala script
1.473.4067.15 415 KiB
(424,960 bytes) 		2004-10-22 Third-party software Microsoft Visual OpenType Layout Tool (VOLT) 1.1.225 update
1.473.4067.0 415 KiB
(424,960 bytes) 		2004-10-22 Third-party software Supports Malayalam script; VOLTSupplementalFiles (Nov 2004); rendering improvement up to 3 diacritics with CGJ
1.471.4063.0 415 KiB
(424,960 bytes) 		2004-02-04 Microsoft Office 2003 (fix), SIL FieldWorks (Speech Tools Phonology Assistant 3.0.1) ?
1.471.4030.0 404 KiB
(413,184 bytes) 		2004-04-15 Microsoft Office 2003, Google Earth
1.468.4015.0 ? KiB
(? bytes) 		? Paratext 6 Supports Tibetan script.
1.468.4011.0 ? KiB
(? bytes) 		? ?
1.460.3707.0 ? KiB
(? bytes) 		? MS VOLT 1.1.206 Supports Khmer script
1.453.3665.0 ? KiB
(? bytes) 		? VOLTSupplementalFiles (Aug 2002) ?
1.422.3790.1830 355 KiB
(364,032 bytes) 		2005-03-30 Windows Server 2003 (SP1) FIX?
1.421.3790.0 345 KiB
(353,280 bytes) 		2003-03-25 Windows Server 2003 Support for DirectX, GDI+ and newer display driver model
1.420.2600.5969 397 KiB
(406,016 bytes) 		2010-04-16 Windows XP (SP3) Security Update KB981322 MS10-063: Description of the security update for Windows Unicode Scripts Processor: September 14, 2010
1.420.2600.5512 397 KiB
(406,016 bytes) 		2008-04-14 Windows XP Build 5512 (SP3) FIX?
1.420.2600.3163 397 KiB
(406,016 bytes) 		2007-06-26 Windows XP (SP2) Hotfix KB939450 FIX: The GetCharacterPlacement function unexpectedly returns zero
1.420.2600.2791 397 KiB
(406,016 bytes) 		2005-11-05 Windows XP (SP2) Hotfix KB910466 FIX: You may receive a "MEM_BAD_POINTER" error message on a computer that is running Windows XP with Service Pack 2
1.420.2600.2180 397 KiB
(406,528 bytes) 		2004-08-12 Windows XP Build 2180 (SP2) Supports Bengali and Malayalam scripts ; supports complex Latin (for Vietnamese); FIX: ligation of tone contours
1.409.2600.1106 331 KiB
(339,456 bytes) 		2002-08-29 Windows XP Build 1106 (SP1) ?
1.408.2600.1020 331 KiB
(339,456 bytes) 		2002-04-17 Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106 (SP1) ?
1.407.2600.0 331 KiB
(339,456 bytes) 		2001-08-17 Windows XP Supports Thaana, Gujarati, Kannada, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Syriac and Telugu scripts
1.405.2416.1 317 KiB
(325,120 bytes) 		2001-01-15 Microsoft Office XP (2002), Microsoft Word 2000 (SP1) Fully supports Hebrew, Devanagari and Tamil scripts
1.400.2411.1 316 KiB
(323,072 bytes) 		2000-12-13 Internet Explorer 6 ?
1.325.2195.6692 308 KiB
(315,664 bytes) 		2003-06-19 Windows 2000 SP4 (?) ?
1.325.2195.? ?
 2001-09-25 Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0 Redistributable for Windows 95/98/Me KB827763 Needed for Microsoft viewers (which otherwise require 98SE at least) of Powerpoint 2003 (and later) presentations on Windows 95 and 98
1.325.2195.1340 308 KiB
(315,664 bytes) 		2000-07-21 Windows 2000 SP1 Fully supports Arabic script
1.325.2180.1 316 KiB
(323,584 bytes) 		2000-06-08 Windows Me Improved API for scripts with bidirectional and complex layouts ; minimum support for Arabic and Hebrew scripts (no contextual letter forms, requires compatibility character mappings in fonts)
307 KiB
(315,152 bytes) 		2000-04-26 Microsoft Global IME for Microsoft Office XP
307 KiB
(315,152 bytes) 		1999-11-30 Internet Explorer 5.5 release, SP1 & SP2
1.175.0.1 268 KiB
(274,432 bytes) 		1999-04-05 Windows 98 SE First stable Uniscribe API ; supports simple alphabetic scripts with decomposed diacritics (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic)
258 KiB
(264,976 bytes) 		1999-01-28 Internet Explorer 5.01
1.163.1890.1 262 KiB
(268,288 bytes) 		1998-09-22 Third-party software Multilanguage Text Layout and Complex Scripts (MTLCS) snapshot (early release for developers)

Versions

Although Uniscribe has been available since Windows 2000, new versions of Uniscribe provided more functions to the system, namely, support for other writing systems. An earlier update of it supports the display of Arabic and Hebrew, then Thai and Vietnamese. Since Windows XP, more South Asian and Assyrian alphabets are supported.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "RE: Symbola font (was: James Kass and Code2000 font)". Retrieved 2011-01-29.
  2. ↑ Public Review Issue #37, Proposal on Clarification and Consolidation of the Function of ZERO WIDTH JOINER in Indic Scripts, Unicode Consortium
Notes

External links