மெய் MeiScopeமெய் · Tamil Type Inspector
Tamil-first font diagnostics · Core block + Tamil Supplement

Look closer at Tamil type.

MeiScope inspects the details a normal font preview hides: உயிர், மெய், உயிர்மெய் construction, pulli clarity, split vowels, Grantha support, Unicode behaviour, reading texture and OpenType readiness.

01 Inspect script behaviour 02 Diagnose font engineering 03 Create a shareable specimen PDF
Start here

Load a Tamil font

Your font is analysed locally in the browser. Nothing is uploaded to a server.

Drop a Tamil font here or click to choose · TTF / OTF / WOFF / WOFF2
Local-first analysis No font loaded
New here? Follow the 7-step guided inspection ↓
Live specimen

System Tamil

அழகு என்பது எழுத்தின் தோற்றத்தில் மட்டும் இல்லை. அது வாசிக்கப்படும் விதத்திலும் இருக்கிறது.

தமிழ் · Sri Lanka / India · 0123456789 · ௦௧௨௩௪௫௬௭௮௯
12px தமிழ் மொழி எழுத்து வடிவம் 16px தமிழ் மொழி எழுத்து வடிவம் 24px தமிழ் மொழி எழுத்து வடிவம்
Guided inspection

Explore the font in seven deliberate steps.

You can jump anywhere, or follow the recommended path from letter anatomy through engineering. MeiScope keeps track of where you are.

Step 1 of 7
AnatomyStart with Tamil forms and critical distinctions.
01 · Script anatomy

See the family resemblance — and the dangerous look-alikes.

Core Tamil groups are arranged by visual and orthographic relationships, not alphabet order alone.

உயிர் · vowels
அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ ஔ
மெய் · core consonants
க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ ழ ள ற ன
High-risk distinctions
vsvsvsvsvs
Grantha / extended consonants
ஜ ஶ ஷ ஸ ஹ க்ஷ ஸ்ரீ
Special signs
ஂ ஃ ௐ
Pulli rhythm · every core consonant with ்
க் ங் ச் ஞ் ட் ண் த் ந் ப் ம் ய் ர் ல் வ் ழ் ள் ற் ன்
02 · Uyirmei matrix

One consonant. Twelve vowel behaviours.

Scan repeated matra joins for consistency, collisions, width jumps and awkward counters.

Unicode normalisation

Precomposed ↔ decomposed render parity

These pairs are canonically equivalent. Width mismatch is a useful warning signal, although visual inspection remains the final check.

03 · Shaping stress

Make the hard combinations fail here — not after release.

Stress strings emphasise split vowels, pulli, extended forms, punctuation and edge-case controls.

Controls & isolated marks
◌ா ◌ி ◌ீ ◌ு ◌ூ ◌ெ ◌ே ◌ை ◌ொ ◌ோ ◌ௌ ◌்
U+25CC dotted circle · ZWJ U+200D · ZWNJ U+200C · ZWSP U+200B
04 · Reading texture

Judge colour, rhythm and fatigue — not isolated beauty.

Switch between display, interface and long-form contexts to see whether the font still feels coherent.

05 · Font info, coverage & internals

Know the font before you judge it.

Read the identity, authorship, licensing and technical metadata embedded in the font, then inspect Tamil coverage and OpenType architecture.

Embedded font metadata

Identity, authorship & licence

These fields are read from the font itself. Missing information means the relevant metadata was not found in the uploaded file.

Optional archival support · Tamil Supplement
𑿀 𑿁 𑿂 𑿐 𑿑 𑿓 𑿿

Historic Tamil fractions and symbols live in the separate U+11FC0–U+11FFF Tamil Supplement block. They are useful for scholarly or archival fonts, but are not included in the core readiness score.

OpenType feature tags
Load a font
06 · Compare · guided review

Compare decisions, not just appearances.

A useful comparison asks why one font behaves differently. Load a second font, then inspect language support, vowel construction, pulli clarity, texture and technical architecture side by side.

A
Primary fontSystem Tamil
FONT APrimary

தமிழின் தனித்துவம் அதன் வளைவிலும் இடைவெளியிலும் மட்டும் இல்லை; வாசிப்பின் ஓட்டத்திலும் இருக்கிறது.

FONT BComparison

தமிழின் தனித்துவம் அதன் வளைவிலும் இடைவெளியிலும் மட்டும் இல்லை; வாசிப்பின் ஓட்டத்திலும் இருக்கிறது.

What to look for

Six questions that reveal more than “which one looks nicer?”

Use these as a review conversation with yourself, a client or another type designer. MeiScope can surface measurable differences; optical quality still needs human judgement.

07 · OpenType Play

See a Tamil syllable travel from characters to glyphs.

Type a word or cluster. The playground separates Unicode characters, shows each character’s nominal glyph in the uploaded font, explains Tamil shaping roles, and then shows the browser-shaped result.

Browser-shaped result
கொ

A consonant plus the O vowel sign. Tamil shaping may decompose and visually arrange the split vowel around the base.

Base / consonantVowel signPulli / viramaGranthaJoin control
1
Unicode textCharacters arrive in logical order
2
cmapCharacters map to nominal glyphs
3
Shaping engineCluster analysis + reordering
4
GSUB / GPOSSubstitute + position
5
Rendered textFinal visual cluster
Character → nominal glyph

These glyph IDs come from the uploaded font’s cmap mapping. They are the starting glyphs before complex shaping.

Font architecture

Which OpenType machinery is available?

Tamil shaping engines analyse and reorder the cluster before applying GSUB substitutions and GPOS positioning. This panel shows relevant feature tags detected in your font; presence alone does not prove the lookups are correct.

Why MeiScope does not invent “final glyph IDs”: browsers expose the rendered result but not the complete internal glyph stream after every shaping lookup. The coloured pipeline is therefore an informed explanation; cmap glyph IDs are measured from your font, while the final visual result is rendered by the browser’s shaping engine.
What this score means

A font can pass every technical check and still be a poor typeface.

MeiScope measures support and surfaces suspicious behaviour. It cannot decide whether ழ has the right personality, whether a text face is tiring after ten pages, or whether spacing feels culturally and stylistically right. Those remain designer decisions.