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Old 04-11-2019, 11:54 AM   #4
Tex2002ans
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Posts: 2,297
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: Kobo Forma, Nook
Quote:
Originally Posted by lumpynose View Post
Perhaps using the '"Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" of the Unicode block (U+1D400..U+1D7FF)' is not a best practice for regular running text. What about using a Fraktur font?
Exactly.

The Fraktur Unicode characters are meant only for Maths (Formulas, Equations, Variables, [...]).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathem...umeric_Symbols

Especially see the 2nd paragraph:

Quote:
Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols are Unicode blocks of Latin and Greek letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles. The letters in various fonts often have specific, fixed meanings in particular areas of mathematics. By providing uniformity over numerous mathematical articles and books, these conventions help to read mathematical formulae.

[...]

Unicode expressly recommends that these characters not be used in general text as a substitute for presentational markup; the letters are specifically designed to be semantically different from each other. [...]
Also see the "Fraktur" article on Wikipedia:

Quote:
Individual Fraktur letters are sometimes used in mathematics, which often denotes associated or parallel concepts by the same letter in different fonts. For example, a Lie group is often denoted by G, while its associated Lie algebra is 𝖌. [...] In model theory, 𝕬 is used to denote an arbitrary model, with A as its universe. Fraktur is also used in other ways at the discretion of the author.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PoP View Post
My point was to use a code block that would not change the "Germanized" look even if the user would change in his preferences the viewing font.
This is extremely poor practice and would completely ruin things like Text-to-Speech. Properly encoded characters are very important.

Side Note: A similar issue cropped up with the Hebrew Aleph character in this topic:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3574570

That user accidentally used the Hebrew Alef א (U+05D0) instead of the Alef Symbol ℵ (U+2135).

It broke the layout of the book because he used the wrong character.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PoP View Post
At the beginning, I was naively expecting the Kindle fonts to support that code block natively. Of course my idea failed when I needed to embed my own font.
Most of that mathematical block was added in Unicode 3.1, but support is really rare... mostly focused on fonts designed specifically for Maths... like the STIX fonts:

https://www.stixfonts.org/

You can also use a tool like BabelMap in order to find out which fonts on your computer include those characters:

http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html

Complete Side Note: This reminds me of the "Look-Alike Domains" that unscrupulous spammers/malware-producers use to trick people into going to their domains or clicking on links or trying to get around spam blockers:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/...ual-confusion/

Another thing that many scammer "ghost writers" on places like Fiverr do is run text through programs which try to substitute original characters with their "visual equivalents" to try to get around plagiarism checkers.

Here's some examples:

https://forum.fiverr.com/t/article-w...m-mafia/160631
https://forum.fiverr.com/t/scam-plag...lers/146821/15

An easy way to spot this is typically your spellchecker going insane with red squigglies everywhere.

Long story short... don't do this. Just include a Fraktur font for visual distinction.

Last edited by Tex2002ans; 04-11-2019 at 01:25 PM.
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