Hi, Does anyone know what the mapping codes for the super-script “st”, “nd”, “rd”, etc. for number Suffixes Like 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. are?
Thanks!
I could be wrong, as there are an aweful lot of character sets in the Unicode standard, but I don’t think they have an assigned codepoint. You would have to use the Private Use Area.
Do you know of any fonts with these symbols? I thought I had seen them somewhere, but I don’t see them now in Minion Pro. OpenType fonts will use Glyph Substitutions so that when a user types 1st 2nd 3rd 4th etc., the letters will be replaced with the superscripted glyphs. You will need to use other software to do this.
See this Tutorial thread: Adding OpenType Features
I found that Palatino Linotype has a full set of superscript lowercase letters, and none of them are mapped. They are used by OpenType Glyph Substitutions. These would only be available in InDesign or other programs that offer OpenType support.
Palatino Ordinals.png
It would perhaps be a good idea if there were a list of Private Use Area codes for st nd rd th and maybe a few others such as Mr Mrs Miss Mme and Mlle. Due to the rules of using the Private Use Area, any such list would not be an official standard yet might be of use so that fonts where such glyphs are included and used with ordinary applications to produce hardcopy printouts could use such glyphs. This might be particularly useful for script fonts. If the codepoints used were used by various fontmakers then trying various fonts with a design would be much easier.
As there is more to using the Private Use Area than just picking any codepoints in the Private Use Area range, maybe a published list would be useful.
By saying that there is more to using the Private Use Area than just picking any code points in the Private Use Area range I am meaning things such as avoiding U+F000 to U+F0FF because of Microsoft Symbol font usage, possibly avoiding a codepoint ending in hexadecimal 00 as this can sometimes be problematic with some versions of WordPad due to older Microsoft presumptions of usage of the Private Use Area with Japanese characters, avoiding code points used for things like a ct ligature in various fonts and so on. Somewhere between U+E000 and U+EFFF might be best. Various people use the Private Use Area for various things, so choosing some code points of maximum benefit to fontmakers needs to be done with care.
Any suggestions for some particular code points please?
William Overington
8 April 2008
WordPerfect does it automatically, (I think even with TrueType fonts) so I never thought about it.
It does seem a natural that should have been coded long ago.
Thanks Guys ! This is all good information.
Having given the matter some thought, I decided to try the following Private Use Area code point allocations.
U+E679 LATIN SMALL SUPERSCRIPT LIGATURE ST
U+E67A LATIN SMALL SUPERSCRIPT LIGATURE ND
U+E67B LATIN SMALL SUPERSCRIPT LIGATURE RD
U+E67C LATIN SMALL SUPERSCRIPT LIGATURE TH
These are for glyphs for the st nd rd th used in 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th 5th 6th 7th … 21st 22nd 23rd 24th et cetera.
The decimal values of the hexadecimal values E679, E67A, E67B and E67C are 59001, 59002, 59003 and 59004 respectively, which makes them more easily remembered if one is using the Alt method of entering characters using Microsoft WordPad.
Hopefully these code point suggestions may prove of interest to some of those font producers who wish to provide access to such glyphs within fonts for people using non-OpenType aware applications. In particular for when people are trying to produce stylish hardcopy printouts or graphics for the web.
Please note that these suggestions are not a standard, they are just published in the hope that they might be useful.
William Overington
9 April 2008
Although off-topic as regards st, nd, rd, th yet nonetheless related as some metal script fonts used to have single types for Mr Mrs and Miss with the r rs and iss in a superscript position, I have also tried the following Private Use Area codepoint allocations.
U+E6D3 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT R
U+E6D4 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT RS
U+E6D5 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT ISS
U+E6D6 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT S
U+E6D7 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT ME
U+E6D8 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL M SMALL SUPERSCRIPT LLE
The decimal values of the hexadecimal values E6D3 through to E6D8 are 59091 through to 59096 respectively, which makes them more easily remembered if one is using the Alt method of entering characters using Microsoft WordPad.
Hopefully these code point suggestions may prove of interest to some of those font producers who wish to provide access to such glyphs within fonts for people using non-OpenType aware applications. In particular for when people are trying to produce stylish hardcopy printouts or graphics for the web.
Please note that these suggestions are not a standard, they are just published in the hope that they might be useful.
William Overington
9 April 2008
I have produced a special version of my Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady font containing the above ligatures in the Private Use Area. The font is named Sonnet Special Ligatures.
I also added the following.
U+E6D9 LATIN LIGATURE CAPITAL D SMALL SUPERSCRIPT R
The Alt number for the above ligature is Alt 59097.
There are eleven extra glyphs in the Private Use Area; four glyphs for number suffixes and seven glyphs for what I have called Social Ligatures.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/SONNETSL.TTF
Readers who choose to experiment with using the font could enter the codepoints into a document using an Insert Symbol facility if the application program being used has such a facility, or using Alt codes (59001..59004 for the Number Suffixes and 59091..59097 for the Social Ligatures) or by copying and pasting from the typecase_ pdf to the document followed by reformatting using the Sonnet Social Ligatures font.
Some readers might like to know that I produced the designs for the glyphs by copying and pasting contours of the letters to be superscripted and then applying a transform of scaling by 75% both horizontally and vertically about a fixed point of (0, 2048). That was good for the particular font with its metrics. Other fonts may need other transforms.
The Private Use Area codepoint allocations which I have used in this thread are of my own devising and have no formal standing as regards Unicode. However, readers who wish to use those mappings in their own fonts are welcome to do so if they so choose.
The codepoints are also included in this post, in numerical order, where they may well appear represented by black rectangles.
William Overington
13 September 2008
MS Word does it automatically also.