Egyptian Hieroglyphs (MdC)

Type a phrase in Manuel de Codage (MdC), the standard Egyptologists use to encode hieroglyphs, and the plugin renders it as real hieroglyphs (SVG) using HieroJax and the NewGardiner font (SIL OFL 1.1).

Features:

• Gutenberg block “Egyptian Hieroglyphs (MdC)” with a live preview while you type MdC.
• Automatic MdC → Unicode conversion in the editor (supports quadrats with : and *, juxtaposition, lost signs, shading, red/black, etc.).
• Per-block options: sign size, alignment, color, direction (right-to-left for classical Egyptian), sign spacing, shading and line height.
• [hiero] shortcode for the classic editor: accepts MdC transliteration or Unicode hieroglyphic encoding, e.g. [hiero]ra-ms-sw[/hiero] or [hiero]𓂋𓄿[/hiero], and flows inline with the surrounding text.
• MdC text composer in Settings → Egyptian Hieroglyphs: sign palette (Gardiner list), buttons for cartouches, quadrats and groups, live preview and copy of the result.
• Scripts are only loaded on pages that contain hieroglyphs; the MdC parser (1.2 MB) is only loaded in the editor.
• Signs are rendered as SVG: sharp at any size, and they can be copied and pasted.

MdC example: nTr:r renders the “god” sign (𓊹) above the “r” (𓂋) in a vertical quadrat; ra:Z1*t:Z1 combines quadrats with vertical and horizontal separators.

Credits: rendering engine and converter by HieroJax (GPL-3.0) and the NewGardiner font (SIL OFL 1.1), both by Mark-Jan Nederhof (University of St Andrews). See licenses/ for the full texts.

Source code and build: the block editor script in build/ is compiled from the human-readable sources in src/ (included in this plugin) with @wordpress/scripts. The full source, including the build tooling, is publicly available at github.com/ftorres-10cero/egyptian-hieroglyphs. To rebuild: npm install && npm run build. Third-party files in assets/ (hierojax.js, hierojax.css, mdcconversion.js, NewGardiner font) are unminified upstream files from HieroJax and NewGardiner.

The plugin’s home page, with a live demo, is at ftorres.es.