How to correct true type text font marked as symbol?

TaoOfPu2 · Post by **TaoOfPu2** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:41 pm

Using MainType, I see some text fonts that are identified as symbol fonts. Is there a flag set someplace in the font that marks it as "symbol" which I could modify with FontCreator or similar program?

Bhikkhu Pesala · Post by **Bhikkhu Pesala** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:13 am

You need to modify several different fields using FontCreator.

Unicode Versus Symbol

TaoOfPu2 · Post by **TaoOfPu2** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 12:53 pm

Thanks for pointing me to the guide. I'll do some reading to better understand font construction - I guessed it might be a good idea to acquire FontCreator as well.

William · Post by **William** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:59 pm

The help page http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/m ... ymbol.html has the following.

quote

When a font has a Microsoft Unicode BMP only platform, the font is a normal font. When a font has a Microsoft Symbol platform, the font is a Symbol font.

Symbol character sets have a special meaning: all of the characters in the Unicode range 0xF000 - 0xF0FF (inclusive) will be used to enumerate the symbol character set. All glyphs in this range are mapped to the range 0x0000 - 0x00FF.

Symbol fonts do not form words so line breaks can occur after any character code. A spell checker should not check symbol font-formatted material.

Note: only the first 224 characters of symbol fonts will be accessible, a space and up to 223 printing characters.

end quote

It appears to me, by studying a copy of the Microsoft Webdings font, that those 224 characters are in U+F020 to U+F0FF, though I am not certain about the other 32 characters from U+F000 to U+F01F.

The discussion about Symbol fonts reminded me of something I read on the web years ago, namely an item about the introduction of the Webdings font by Microsoft.

I have now found the following.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web ... efault.htm

I also found the following web pages.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web ... mples2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webdings

Since reading about Webdings some years ago I have become interested in using the Serif program ImpactPlus.

http://www.serif.co.uk and http://www.serif.com/impactplus/impactplus5/index.asp

However, I have version 4, though it was not called version 4, it was just called ImpactPlus. There is a free earlier version named 3DPlus 2 available at the following webspace.

http://www.freeserifsoftware.com

So, thinking about Webdings in the context of now having ImpactPlus I decided to try to use the glyphs in Webdings to produce some three-dimensional designs in ImpactPlus.

Some webdings work better in three-dimensions than do others, for they were not designed for three dimensions. ImpactPlus essentially produces an extruded version of the two-dimensional design, though there is the option of edge bevelling, so designs can be made to look more rounded if so desired. There is an option to produce what are called lathed models from the glyphs, though these vary greatly in effectiveness, though some experiments were done using less than 360 degrees of rotation.

It is possible to produce scenes using three-dimensional shapes produced from two or more of the Webdings, including scaling and rotating through 90 degrees so that, for example, a weightlifter can stand upon a map of the world.

This has provided me with some fun so I thought that I would mention it here in case it is of interest to some other readers of the forum.

William Overington