From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Nov 01 2005 - 16:14:31 CST
From: "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi>
> The use of superscript or subscript characters versus formatting or
> styles or markup is a rather complex question, and I think the
> best answer is "it depends". In particular, formatting, styles,
> or markup may get lost in many ways - simple cut and paste may
> turn 2<sup>2</sup> to 22. Similarly, in a phonetic notation,
> k<sup>h</sup> turns to wrong information if the superscripting is
> removed. On the other hand, changing 1<sup>st</sup> to 1st
> should not disturb anyone, except perhaps esthetically.
Tip: for HTML you can use:
2<sup><span style="display:none;">^</span>2</sup>
When markup is available, the ^ character won't be displayed and the
exponent will be effectively in superscript, but for copy/pasting in
plain-text, it should be there so you'll get "2^2"...
I think this could work as well for
k<sup><span style="display:none;">^</span>h</sup>
(but you'll get "k^h" with a symbol in the middle of a word, still better
than just "kh" as it preserves the intended semantics.)
You would probably not use this trick for "1st", but it would be useful for
N<sup><span style="display:none;">^</span>o</sup> one or two issues
because without it, you get get "No one or two issues" with the wrong
meaning.
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