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<DIV><FONT size=2>To: "Robert Miner" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:RobertM@dessci.com"><FONT size=2>RobertM@dessci.com</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Thanks for your various contributions about math
characters.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Your colleague Bob Matthews knows me, and knows my graphing
program Autograph.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>It strikes me that you may be able to help with a problem we
are encountering in our attempts to get Autograph to run on Chinese Windows, and
other picture language operating systems.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>These systems do not permit the use of bit-map fonts for
dialogue boxes, and we are therefore looking for a way to adapt Arial by adding
about a dozen special characters for the particular symbols we use in
Autograph.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Do you know of a good font designer who can deliver Aria
performance down to 8pt, and add in the extra characters - affordably??
Perhaps Design Science has its own font designers?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>I hope you can help.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>With best wishes</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Douglas</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT
size=2>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>Douglas
Butler </FONT><A href="mailto:debutler@argonet.co.uk"><FONT
size=2>debutler@argonet.co.uk</FONT></A><BR><FONT size=2>iCT Training Centre
(Oundle School), PO Box 46, Oundle PE8 4JX, UK<BR>Tel: +44 (0)1832 273444
Fax: +44 (0)1832 272760 Mob: 07718 319903<BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.argonet.co.uk/oundlesch"><FONT
size=2>www.argonet.co.uk/oundlesch</FONT></A><FONT size=2> Autograph:
</FONT><A href="http://www.autograph-maths.com"><FONT
size=2>www.autograph-maths.com</FONT></A><BR><FONT
size=2>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>----- Original Message ----- </FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=2>From: "Robert Miner" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:RobertM@dessci.com"><FONT size=2>RobertM@dessci.com</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>To: <</FONT><A href="mailto:debutler@argonet.co.uk"><FONT
size=2>debutler@argonet.co.uk</FONT></A><FONT size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Cc: <</FONT><A href="mailto:webmath@camel.math.ca"><FONT
size=2>webmath@camel.math.ca</FONT></A><FONT size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 8:04 AM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Subject: Re: WebMath: standard notation for negative numbers?
ALT 0150</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><BR></FONT></DIV><FONT size=2>> <BR>> <BR>>
Hi.<BR>> <BR>> You wrote:<BR>> <BR>> > Not so - ANY font has a
proper minus sign (en-dash) which can be inserted<BR>> > anywhere as ALT
0150 eg ñx (better than -x), though the distinction will<BR>> > only
be seen in this email if you are running in formatted text.<BR>> <BR>> I
disagree on a technicality. en-dash is en-dash. The unicode point<BR>>
for MINUS in x2212. You can use an en-dash, but in my view, that
is<BR>> faking it.<BR>> <BR>> I concede that it sounds like using
en-dash works pretty well though,<BR>> since as you say, en-dash is in pretty
much any font that covers<BR>> ISO-LATIN-1, and usually looks the way you
want. I don't actually<BR>> object to "faking it" in the least, but I
want to clarify the purist<BR>> viewpoint<BR>> <BR>> > Likewise ALT
1076 for 45ƒ, and ALT 0178 for x¾, and ALT 0179 for x„<BR>> <BR>> I like
the ALT trick too. But note that that behavior is tied to<BR>> the
authoring tool. Not all authoring tools support it.<BR>> <BR>> >
VERY annoying that IE6 does not recognise the Unicode font extensions -<BR>>
> that single advance would solve 50% of MATH notation problems on the
Web,<BR>> > ie all math expressions that can be written as a single line
of<BR>> > text.<BR>> <BR>> I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Windows in general, and IE in<BR>> particular do have pretty good Unicode
support, at least in my<BR>> experience. What is lacking is Unicode
encodings for fonts. All<BR>> older fonts and most new ones use a
different encoding scheme. So if<BR>> you ask a random font for the
glyph in slot x2212, you usually get<BR>> junk.<BR>> <BR>> As an
illustration, here are two snippets on HTML code where the code<BR>> points
for hyphe en-dash and MINUS are hard coded as numerical escape<BR>>
sequences. The first displays fine for me, since Lucida Sans Unicode<BR>> is
one of the few widely distributed fonts with a Unicode encoding.<BR>> Note
that the Lucida designers have made hypen and en-dash very<BR>> similar, but
MINUS still looks like a minus sign.<BR>> <BR>> However, in the second
example, the first two come out fine, but the<BR>> third code point is a
little bullet thing. This is because Times in<BR>> not a
Unicode-encoded font.<BR>> <BR>> <div style="font-family: Lucida Sans
Unicode"><BR>> Here is a hyphen &#45; and an en-dash &#150; and a
minus &#x2212;<BR>> </div><BR>> <BR>> <div
style="font-family: Times"><BR>> Here is a hyphen &#45; and an en-dash
&#150; and a minus &#x2212;<BR>> </div><BR>> <BR>>
<BR>> --Robert<BR>> <BR>>
------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>>
Robert
Miner
</FONT><A href="mailto:RobertM@dessci.com"><FONT
size=2>RobertM@dessci.com</FONT></A><BR><FONT size=2>> MathML 2.0
Specification
Co-editor
651-223-2883<BR>> Design Science, Inc. "How Science
Communicates" </FONT><A href="http://www.dessci.com"><FONT
size=2>www.dessci.com</FONT></A><BR><FONT size=2>>
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