(Re: Unicode mapping table need help) Euro sign encoding in "ANSI 8-bit code", danger of an incompatible quasi-standard

From: Karl Pentzlin (karl-pentzlin@acssoft.de)
Date: Tue Jun 08 1999 - 14:50:49 EDT


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Paul Keinanen <keinanen@sci.fi>
An: Unicode List <unicode@unicode.org>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 8. Juni 1999 16:22
Betreff: Re: Unicode mapping table need help

> The Euro sign is going to be widely used within EU anyway and it is
> unrealistic to think that people would would completely switch to UCS-2
(or
> UTF-8) abandoning all old software, just in order to be able to use the
Euro
> sign. If the 8859-15 would have been further delayed, there would have
been
> a great risk of multiple mutually incompatible vendor specific encodings
for
> the Euro sign.

This is already the case! It is a serious problems to software developers
who have to implement the Euro sign into legacy software which uses
8-bit code (especially the so-called "ANSI Code", i.e. the Microsoft
Windows Western European 8-bit Code).
Microsoft declares on its page:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq12.htm
to assign the Euro symbol to the until now unused code 0x80, but
the Euro-enabled TrueType fonts downloadable from that site do
not show a character at that position.
Some German font vendors, e.g. http://www.softmaker.de or
http://www.data-becker.de are now offering font collections for Windows
with TWO Euro signs in all fonts: the official glyph at 0x87 and a glyph
adapted to each font at 0xA4 (replacing the "currency symbol" which
is the Unicode symbol Ux00A4 at the compatible place!).
THUS THERE IS A REAL DANGER THAT AN INCOMPATIBLE
QUASI-STANDARD ARISES!!!
(The problem Euro glyph vs. Euro character is discussed in detail
e.g. by Neil Kandalgaonkar at http://www.yuiop.com/type/euro/ .
If the parallel use of both persists, maybe an "Euro glyph dingbat"
has to be introduced into Unicode besides the "Euro currency symbol".
I am not the one who will propose that. )

Karl Pentzlin
AC&S Analysis Consulting & Software GmbH
Ganghoferstraße 128
D-81373 München, Germany



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