Use or Purpose of Symbol Platform

[Dick Pape]

I have a philosophical question. (First off, I'm speaking from a Latin fonts point of knowledge.)

What purpose does the Symbol font platform serve -- except to make things complicated!

Many problems I've encountered in reviewing free fonts is when they don't display properly in a character map. Their maps are messed. They are SYMBOL fonts.

When changed to something else everything seems to clear up. Mac and MS maps look alike. No more discussions of User Areas coding. Keyboard access is straightforward.

What am I missing on this issue?

DP

[Dick Pape]

Hi Dick

You posed some good questions on the role of Symbol fonts. I would again wonder why some Symbol fonts use Microsoft mappings of 61472 on up?

The Macintosh side is "normal" mapping values (A-Z). Postscript names are shown as A-Z regardless of the Microsoft maps. How do you display a Symbol font from a keyboard if not to use A-Z shortcuts?

When I am fussing with Symbol fonts, I change the platform which straightens a lot of things out. Is this so bad? Everything seems to work correctly if the fonts are not a Symbol platform.

Why do They complicate our lives?

DPape

[Erwin Denissen]

Hi Dick,

Indeed some very good questions!

First of all a font should only be marked as a Symbol font when it contains dingbats, signs, signatures, symbols etc. Word processing software like Microsoft Word do act differently on characters from Symbol fonts. For example Word won't use the spelling checker.

P.s. do you know why you have to press the Start button in order to shut Windows down?

[Dick Pape]

Good question, too.

I don't use the Start key. I never shut mine down, it does it automatically for me... Blue screen then I turn power off.

Dick