Expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015

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Erwin Denissen
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Expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The Unicode Consortium has changed its publication schedule for versions of the Unicode Standard. Starting with the recent Version 7.0, a new major version of the Unicode Standard will be published each year in June. This new schedule provides reliability and predictability for all software using Unicode. Implementers can now plan well ahead for the appearance of each new version.

So we can expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015, but what's new then?

Since the preliminary data files in preparation for beta review for Version 8.0.0 of the Unicode Standard are already available, we can see the upcoming 7564 new characters:

0D5F MALAYALAM LETTER ARCHAIC II
2BEC LEFTWARDS TWO-HEADED ARROW WITH TRIANGLE ARROWHEADS
2BED UPWARDS TWO-HEADED ARROW WITH TRIANGLE ARROWHEADS
2BEE RIGHTWARDS TWO-HEADED ARROW WITH TRIANGLE ARROWHEADS
2BEF DOWNWARDS TWO-HEADED ARROW WITH TRIANGLE ARROWHEADS
A69E COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER EF
A78F LATIN LETTER SINOLOGICAL DOT
A7B2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J WITH CROSSED-TAIL
A7B3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER CHI
A7B4 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER BETA
A7B5 LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA
A7B6 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA
A7B7 LATIN SMALL LETTER OMEGA
A8FC DEVANAGARI SIGN SIDDHAM
AB60 LATIN SMALL LETTER SAKHA YAT
AB61 LATIN SMALL LETTER IOTIFIED E
AB62 LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN OE
AB63 LATIN SMALL LETTER UO
1F54F BOWL OF HYGIEIA

And also numerous characters related to
HATRAN (26 characters)
MEROITIC (64 characters)
OLD HUNGARIAN (108 characters)
SHARADA (9 characters)
MULTANI (38 characters)
SIDDHAM (18 characters)
AHOM (57 characters)
CUNEIFORM (197 characters)
ANATOLIAN HIEROGLYPHS (583 characters)
MUSICAL SYMBOLS (11 characters)
SIGNWRITING (672 characters)

And a whole new block:
CJK Ideograph Extension E (5,762 characters)
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015

Post by Erwin Denissen »

The whole range of characters defined in the new CJK Unified Ideographs Extension can be found in this document. I'm not sure if this is the most recent available version. The range starts on page 48:
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2012/12357-n4383.pdf
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015

Post by Erwin Denissen »

As most people already know, FontCreator allows you to use new characters even without updating the Unicode data, but it is more convenient to have updated data, as that will show additional information for each new character (codepoint). With every new release of FontCreator we do update the Unicode data to the most recent published release of the Unicode data. So for now we have to wait until June 2015. If you don't want to wait, just update both UnicodeData.txt and Blocks.txt.

You can download the preliminary data files for version 8.0 from here:
http://www.unicode.org/Public/8.0.0/ucd/

Be sure to rename the files to UnicodeData.txt and Blocks.txt.

On the Tools menu in FontCreator, click Options, and then click the Advanced tab.
Then click "Copy Data Files to User Data Folder" and next click "Open User Data Folder" to replace the files UnicodeData.txt and Blocks.txt in the Unicode folder.
Unicode8.png
Unicode8.png (54.79 KiB) Viewed 10546 times
And last but not least, restart FontCreator so it actually starts using the updated files!
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Re: Expect Unicode 8.0 in June of 2015

Post by Alfred »

Thanks, Erwin!
FC14 Pro (Help) + MT11.0 Pro (Help) • Windows 10
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