Font Forum

I want to create a purely Unicode version of my font.
If I delete the platform Microsoft Roman will this have any nasty
repercussions?

Where is the Unicode character for notdef? Is it needed?
Mike

> I want to create a purely Unicode version of my font.

Yes.

> If I delete the platform Microsoft Roman will this have any nasty
repercussions?

I have no idea on this part.

> Where is the Unicode character for notdef? Is it needed?

The notdef character is not part of Unicode as such and it does not have a Unicode code point. The idea is that most fonts do not have a glyph for each possible Unicode character: so, each font has a notdef glyph so that if the display rendering system asks the font for a glyph for a particular Unicode character and the font does not have a glyph for that particular Unicode character, then the font supplies a copy of the notdef glyph so that the display has something to display. This is so that the absence of a glyph is apparent upon the page rather than the glyphs in front of it and after it simply being pushed together with no indication that something was intended to be displayed between them.

The FCP4 manual offers the following advice on the notdef glyph in section 4.3.2, which is on pages 21 and 22 of the document itself, pages 23 and 24 as they appear in Adobe Acrobat reader.

quote

Glyph 0 is the .notdef (missing character) glyph.

end quote

and

quote

The .notdef glyph is very important for providing the user feedback that a glyph is not found in the font.
This glyph should not be left without an outline as the user will only see what looks like a space if a
glyph is missing and not be aware of the active font's limitation.
It is recommended that the shape of the .notdef glyph be either an empty rectangle, a rectangle with a
question mark inside of it, or a rectangle with an "X". Creative shapes, like swirls or other symbols, may
not be recognized by users as indicating that a glyph is missing from the font and is not being
displayed at that location.

end quote

Actually, I use a distinctive shape of my own design for the notdef glyph in most of my fonts. That was from before I read the above advice. However, I do like having my own distinctive notdef glyph in my fonts, so I continue to use it.

William Overington

9 January 2005

William wrote:If I delete the platform Microsoft Roman will this have any nasty repercussions?

That platform is new to me

You can delete all but the Microsoft platforms and your font will still run on the most recent Windows versions. Backward compatibility with older Windows versions is not guaranteed. Your font might even still work on Mac OSX, but I'm not able to test this.

Erwin: That platform is new to me

Me: What you've never heard of MicroSoft Roman?

Well after I deleted Macintosh Roman, I did a Glyph Sort and
the .notdef glyph jumped to become the last glyph. Is there a way of
preventing this or easily moving it back?

You will have to wait for version 5.0. That sort feature is slightly improved and will put the .notdef .null and nonmarkingreturn glyphs at the top of the glyph list.