Ariel and Times New Roman both contain 1,674 glyphs.
What is the practical maximum number of glyphs that should be used in a font?
Number of glyphs in a font
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Number of glyphs in a font
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Re: Number of glyphs in a font
2^16.
Unicode fonts are the largest out there, and can contain 65,536 glyphs (maybe only 65,535). This is not a theoretical limit, it is the architectural glyph limit of font files, be they TrueType, OpenType, etc.
Unicode fonts are the largest out there, and can contain 65,536 glyphs (maybe only 65,535). This is not a theoretical limit, it is the architectural glyph limit of font files, be they TrueType, OpenType, etc.
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Re: Number of glyphs in a font
Define "practical." It depends rather a lot on what the purpose of the font is. If the glyphs are complex symbols and graphics the practical limit to the number of glyphs may be only a few hundred.
Most of my fonts contain about 2,000 glyphs including lots of Latin accented glyphs, Greek glyphs, and a comprehensive range of symbols.
Most of my fonts contain about 2,000 glyphs including lots of Latin accented glyphs, Greek glyphs, and a comprehensive range of symbols.
Re: Number of glyphs in a font
My most recent font currently contains 1606 glyphs, representing contextual forms and ligatures of around 160 characters.
In response to your private message, I'm still not exactly sure what you mean. If you are asking about keyboard access, it all depends on what you consider access to be. You can use Alt combinations to access pretty much any code point, but if the font doesn't contain proper mappings or OpenType style glyph selection, or a program doesn't support the glyph selection, then a good number of glyphs in a font can be absolutely unavailable to you.
If you don't like Alt+ availability (I hate it), I am currently creating a keyboard with MSKLC that can access every Latin glyph in the Unicode Latin Extended -A, -B, -C, and Additional blocks, in addition to complete Devanagari coverage, Hiragana and Katakana, Greek, basic Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Mongolian, PhagsPa, Cherokee, Braille, and the block of characters I am writing a proposal for. I also would like to extend the coverage to include about 2000 of the most commonly used Japanese Kanji. So what is the limit? Well, by my calculations, you can theoretically make a keyboard that can access 141,752 characters, not that you'd ever want to try to use it. There are currently 107,361 characters allocated in Unicode 5.2, so that leaves you with 34,391 Private Use code points you could access in addition to the full Unicode repertoire. Just gotta make the keyboard...
In response to your private message, I'm still not exactly sure what you mean. If you are asking about keyboard access, it all depends on what you consider access to be. You can use Alt combinations to access pretty much any code point, but if the font doesn't contain proper mappings or OpenType style glyph selection, or a program doesn't support the glyph selection, then a good number of glyphs in a font can be absolutely unavailable to you.
If you don't like Alt+ availability (I hate it), I am currently creating a keyboard with MSKLC that can access every Latin glyph in the Unicode Latin Extended -A, -B, -C, and Additional blocks, in addition to complete Devanagari coverage, Hiragana and Katakana, Greek, basic Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Mongolian, PhagsPa, Cherokee, Braille, and the block of characters I am writing a proposal for. I also would like to extend the coverage to include about 2000 of the most commonly used Japanese Kanji. So what is the limit? Well, by my calculations, you can theoretically make a keyboard that can access 141,752 characters, not that you'd ever want to try to use it. There are currently 107,361 characters allocated in Unicode 5.2, so that leaves you with 34,391 Private Use code points you could access in addition to the full Unicode repertoire. Just gotta make the keyboard...
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Re: Number of glyphs in a font
The following web page is interesting.
http://www.code2000.net/code2000_page.htm
It includes the following.
quote
Code2000 is one of the larger fonts available and the latest build has over 60000 glyphs.
end quote
Code 2000 is a famous font.
The following web pages are also of interest.
http://www.code2000.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_2000
William Overington
31 May 2010
http://www.code2000.net/code2000_page.htm
It includes the following.
quote
Code2000 is one of the larger fonts available and the latest build has over 60000 glyphs.
end quote
Code 2000 is a famous font.
The following web pages are also of interest.
http://www.code2000.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_2000
William Overington
31 May 2010
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Re: Number of glyphs in a font
I have solved my problem. It is the Word Processor!
(But I am very interested in Vanisaac's keyboard!
BTW, thanks for all replies!)
My friend using Microsoft Word (sorry, I don't know what version) was unable to access the Private Use area.
I experimented with my WordPerfect 11 and found the same problem, and more.
Using MainType, it pasted in many symbols from Times New Roman rather than the selected font,
AND "?" instead of the PUA glyphs. Alt + whatever often returned unexpected results, and in the PUA
seems only to return -, +, or nothing. Switching to Sun Star Office, The "problem" disappeared.
I don't even need a special keyboard.
(But I am very interested in Vanisaac's keyboard!
BTW, thanks for all replies!)
My friend using Microsoft Word (sorry, I don't know what version) was unable to access the Private Use area.
I experimented with my WordPerfect 11 and found the same problem, and more.
Using MainType, it pasted in many symbols from Times New Roman rather than the selected font,
AND "?" instead of the PUA glyphs. Alt + whatever often returned unexpected results, and in the PUA
seems only to return -, +, or nothing. Switching to Sun Star Office, The "problem" disappeared.
I don't even need a special keyboard.
Last edited by Dave Crosby on Mon May 31, 2010 12:25 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Aut nunc aut nunquam
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Re: Number of glyphs in a font
That is interesting.Dave Crosby wrote: My friend using Microsoft Word was unable to access the Private Use area.
The version of Microsoft Word that we have here is Word 97 (bought in about 1998, so it is far from being the latest version of Word) and I have regularly been using the Insert Symbol... facility to insert Private Use Area characters into text documents.
William Overington
31 May 2010