Khmer Unicode Sorter & Fixer

The Khmer Unicode Sorter & Fixer is a specialized text normalization tool that resolves one of the most persistent issues in Khmer digital publishing: incorrect Unicode codepoint ordering within syllable clusters. Khmer script is an Abugida — each consonant carries an inherent vowel, and diacritics, subscript consonants (Coeng, U+17D2), and vowel signs must appear in a precise Unicode sequence. When text is typed on legacy NiDA or Limon keyboard layouts, exported from PDF documents, or copied from poorly encoded websites, the codepoint order frequently deviates from the Unicode 3.0 specification for Khmer (U+1780–U+17FF). This produces visible symptoms: floating dotted circles (◌, U+25CC), displaced vowel glyphs, subscripts appearing above baseline, or outright character substitution errors in font rendering engines.

Algorithmic Logic & Calculation

The normalizer applies a rule-based Unicode reordering algorithm modeled on the ICU (International Components for Unicode) Khmer break iterator logic. It identifies syllable boundaries by detecting base consonants (U+1780–U+17A2), then reorders any misplaced dependent vowels (U+17B6–U+17C5), subscript markers (Coeng U+17D2), diacritical marks (U+17C6–U+17D1), and independent vowels (U+17A3–U+17B3) into their canonical positions. The result is a clean NFC-normalized Unicode string that renders identically across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and all major Khmer-aware font engines including Noto Khmer and Khmer OS.