Blanks

[berti]

Hello, instead of a blank there is in word shown on screen a rectangle in the scanahand-font . Is there any way to change it in the font) Thank you, Berti

[William]

Hello, instead of a blank there is in word shown on screen a rectangle in the scanahand-font . Is there any way to change it in the font) Thank you, Berti

It is not clear to me exactly what is the question that you are asking.

Each TrueType font, whether produced using Scanahand or otherwise, includes a glyph known as the .notdef glyph. It is very often represented using a rectangle. Some fonts use a different design for the .notdef glyph, but a rectangle is very commonly used.

When a program such as WordPad wants to display some text, such as a sentence, it has a sequence of character codes, that is a sequence of numbers, with each number representing a particular character. For example, the number 101 represents a letter e, and a number 102 represents a letter f. When a program such as WordPad wants to display a glyph for a character 102 it, in effect, sends the 102 to the particular font that is being used and gets in return a glyph to display. The font always sends a glyph. If it has a specific glyph for the number requested, then it will send that: if it does not have a specific glyph for the number requested, then it will send the .notdef glyph. WordPad simply displays what it gets back from the font. So, if a request is made for, say, an é character and the font does not have a specific glyph for an é character, the font will send the .notdef glyph and WordPad will display it. Thus if the word were café and the font did not have a specific glyph for an é character and the .notdef character for the font were a rectangle then WordPad would display caf followed by a rectangle.

Does that help?

As I understand it, a Scanahand font uses a rectangle for the .notdef character every time and that cannot be changed using Scanahand. The .notdef glyph can be changed by using FontCreator 5.6.

Is that what you are asking?

William Overington

2 June 2009

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I suppose that the problem you have is with Smart Quotes. Word converts " and ' to “ and ‘ smart quotes. If your font created in Scanahand doesn't include those smart quote glyphs, you will see the .notdef glyph instead.

Is that right, or is it some other character that is missing?

[berti]

Thank you for your answers. Excuse me, my english is very bad und therefore my question ist not clear. I want to knwow, why the space between two words is undefined in the font, that Scanahand creates? In Winword this space between the words is shown as an rectangle.

[William]

I suppose that the problem you have is with Smart Quotes. Word converts " and ' to “ and ‘ smart quotes. If your font created in Scanahand doesn't include those smart quote glyphs, you will see the .notdef glyph instead.

Is that right, or is it some other character that is missing?

I don't know about later versions, but with the original Scanahand there were mapped glyphs for four smart quotes in a font produced using Scanahand, the glyph designs were just direct copies of whatever one had for ascii quote and ascii double quote, so although smart quotes were not displayed as such, rectangles were not displayed.

I only have Word 97, but I am wondering if the Show/Hide button is set to Show then perhaps the black rectangle is because there is no glyph for the paragraph mark?

Also, I notice that the original question refers to "there is in word shown on screen" and I am not sure as to whether that is intended to mean "there is within a word shown on the screen" or whether it is intended to mean "there is, when using Word, shown on the screen". That is, does word in that sentence refer to the English word for the items that make up a sentence or does it refer to a product of the Microsoft Corporation? Product names such as PowerPoint are good because they are unambiguous.

So maybe it is neither smart quotes nor the paragraph mark that is related to the problem?

William Overington

2 June 2009

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I want to knwow, why the space between two words is undefined in the font, that Scanahand creates? In Winword this space between the words is shown as an rectangle.

The space character is defined in Scanahand fonts automatically. I suggest that you attach your font here so that we can look at it.

See the "Upload attachment" tab below the message reply box.

[berti]

Now it seems to be clear, what the problem is. Word shows on screen instead of a space a small point. This point ist in the scanahand font undefinded. Please see the attachement. When it goes to the printer, everthing is ok.

[William]

I suggest that you attach your font here so that we can look at it.

Or, if you prefer not to publish the font for anyone reading this thread to look at, you could send it direct to only Bhikkhu Pesala by attaching it to an email to him.

William Overington

3 June 2009

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I presume that the missing glyph is period centre (ANSI 183). If you have the Premium version of Scanahand you can add that glyph (or any other glyph) to your fonts.

In Word, if you turn off show hidden characters, then you won't see the rectangles.

[Jowaco]

Berti,

see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

MS Word is the culprit, not Scanahand. Depending on the version of Word you have (Word 2003 and earlier), a toolbar button marked with a '¶' toggles the non printing formatting characters which are not present in the Scanahand collection of glyphs.

Joe.

[Erwin Denissen]

FYI Scanahand 3 (scheduled for July) will automatically add an ellipsis … character, that is made out of 3 period characters. We've also assigned the middle dot character and the bullet operator character to the glyph that is mapped to the bullet character. This rather technical talk just means the generated fonts will now support the ellipsis as used by Microsoft Word's auto completion. And the additional bullet character support now ensures the bullet is shown whenever a user wants to show Nonprinting characters in Word documents.

[William]

FYI Scanahand 3 (scheduled for July) will automatically add an ellipsis … character, that is made out of 3 period characters. We've also assigned the middle dot character and the bullet operator character to the glyph that is mapped to the bullet character. This rather technical talk just means the generated fonts will now support the ellipsis as used by Microsoft Word's auto completion. And the additional bullet character support now ensures the bullet is shown whenever a user wants to show Nonprinting characters in Word documents.

In the early days a font made using Scanahand also did not contain a paragraph sign.

The image shows samples of the Beta Gallery font that I made using an early version of Scanahand and of the Gallery font that I made using FontCreator 5.6, starting from a copy of the Beta Gallery font.

Samples of Beta Gallery and Gallery in Show mode in Word 97

gallery_show.png (11.72 KiB) Viewed 946 times

When I made Beta Gallery using Scanahand I made the up_arrow box contain the following.

The contents of the up arrow in Beta Gallery and Gallery

up_arrow_in_gallery_font.png (1.72 KiB) Viewed 947 times

Using Font Creator 5.6 I copied the individual character glyphs from the up_arrow cell and placed them into separate cells that I had added to the Gallery font, adjusting the side bearings so as to match those used by Scanahand for other characters. I also added U+2000 through to U+200B, which are various spaces.

The graphics in this post were made using the fonts at 18 point.

William Overington

4 June 2009

[Erwin Denissen]

May I suggest adding the paragraph mark, named and mapped as in a new font made using FontCreator 5.6, as well please?

The paragraph / pilcrow sign is already available in both Scanahand and FontCreator.

[William]

The paragraph / pilcrow sign is already available in both Scanahand and FontCreator.

Yes, my mistake. The Beta Gallery font was made with an early version of Scanahand. I had forgotten that the paragraph / pilcrow sign had later been added. I have now altered my earlier post.

William Overington

4 June 2009