Re: Motion P1788/M0034.01 Notation:NO
Vincent Lefèvre wrote, replying to Alan Eliasen:
> > you can manage, with more research, to compose a Unicode |R character
> > with overline, such as by the sequence U+211D U+0305, to make |Rbar,
> > it is questionable if it will survive cutting-and-pasting, or even if
> > its display will be visible and distinguishable.
>
> No problems on my side, except that it is not very visible due to the
> small font I use. In any case, the context should help. Copy-paste
> works too.
These fancy symbols belong in a typeset document, not in e-mail or
text-based listserver-distributed material. It turns out that cut&paste
may be essential. Even when I transferred the post to my Notes account
on a Windows machine the characters displayed as open boxes. I had to
cut&paste into Notepad to get a clue (using a magnifying glass), or into
Word at 200% to see what it really was. And even then the bar was not
the overbar it was supposed to be, it lay on the side. Can Unicode
express an overstrike? Typesetting programs can.
Another problem with such characters is survivability. When that post
was forwarded back to me from my Notes account, the distinction between
the two funny characters (the |R and the bar) had been wiped out; both
were represented by a catch-all funny-character symbol.
As you can see I made up my own translations, as I've been doing for other
symbols already.
I'm actually sinning too, by assuming everybody can read the Latin1
extended character set that includes European-language accents and
diacritics, as in Vincent's last name. Sometimes this is reflected
back to me correctly, sometimes it's been translated to UTF8 (which
I can translate back in this case), and I'm not sure how others see
it. (I type "Lefe\`vre" to get "Lefèvre.)
Michel.
---Sent: 2012-06-09 09:05:37 UTC