RE: Accessing alternate glyphs from plain text

From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 12 2010 - 04:38:59 CDT

  • Next message: William_J_G Overington: "RE: Accessing alternate glyphs from plain text"

    See the attached PDF showing Unicode 5.2 text set in Word 2010 using the Gabriola font with line-ending characters formatted with the Stylistic Set 7 OpenType Feature. No PUA; no variation selectors. Just flourishing, OpenType glyphs.


    Peter


    -----Original Message-----
    From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of William_J_G Overington
    Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 12:41 AM
    To: Unicode Mailing List
    Cc: wjgo_10009@btinternet.com
    Subject: Re: Accessing alternate glyphs from plain text

    Earlier this morning I tried writing a poem intended to use alternate ending glyphs.
     
    I hope that readers will enjoy reading it. For reasons of correctness at the present time, I have used U+EE0F, which is from the Private Use Area, rather than U+FE0F, which is what would be used if my suggestion for accessing an alternate ending glyph ever becomes a formal proposal that later becomes accepted into regular Unicode.
     
    A poem can express a picture
    Such as a fjord's towering cliff
    And a poem can have fine typography
    Such as a flourishing, ending glyph
     
    A poem can imagine great buildings
    Constructed of stones rising high
    With surrounding landscape suggested
    With glyphs from a printer's pie
     
    A poem can express ideas
    Whatever ideas one may want
    A poem can end with a flourish
    An alternate glyph from a font
     
    Some readers might like to know that I composed the poem directly using the computer rather than write it on paper. I used WordPad and keyed EE0F followed by Alt-x in order to enter the U+EE0F character. I checked the result using SC UniPad.
     
    I had started with the intention of a single verse poem, the present first verse. I then added a second verse, which is the present third verse. I then realized that I had not used an alternate ending e, so I wrote a third verse. I then decided that the newly written verse should become the second verse.
     
    When entering pie I found that I needed to type pie then a space then EE0F then Alt-x and then delete the space.
     
    I am aware that I have used a basic apostrophe. I thought of using a 9-style apostrophe yet was concerned that it might not get through the system. If anyone does try typesetting the poem, please use the 9-style apostrophe: indeed, a desktop publishing package might well change it automatically.
     
    A helpful experiment would be for an advanced format font to be made that recognises the sequences and glyph substitutes the alternate ending glyphs when the plain text is pasted into an appropriate application program.
     
    Readers who would like to try writing their own poems, or indeed prose, using an U+EE0F to indicate an alternate ending glyph are welcome to do so.
     
    William Overington
     
    12 August 2010
     








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