Tech: Flat symbol ???

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: Rowan
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 04:49 PM

What I like about Mudcat is that all the smartarses are so erudite, and helpful with it.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 06:05 PM

It may be of interest to some to know where to look for Fonts that are installed with Office

This site suggests:

"If you are looking for free fonts, shareware fonts, or commercial fonts, visit the following Microsoft Web site for links to typography news headlines, contacts, and an updated database of more than 600 type-related and typography-related Web sites:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/default.mspx"

Note that the fonts listed in the article first above are those available for installation on the Office installation disks. The same fonts typically will be included for single office components such as Word, if you bought one as an individual program. Not all of the listed fonts will be installed during typical installations, but you can add/remove them as needed.

Recent versions of Office do include ONE "full Unicode font," (Arial Unicode MS). It is not normally installed, and installation is NOT RECOMMENDED except for those who have a specific need for it. The font is 22MB, and there are lots of articles at the Microsoft Knowledge Base on problems that you may have to "correct" if/when you attempt to use it.

A typical description for this font is at:

Description of the Arial Unicode MS font in Word 2002

Most of our comments in this thread have been made assuming that the question referred to web posting. That appears not to be the main interest of the originator. Perhaps some other usages need to be discussed, as we do have lots of ex-spurts in other kinds of communication arts here.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 08:26 AM

Actually I have a friend who is currently confined to Fedora, and her tech guy has divorced her... We both want to have ease of use of music though...

I have been seeing a lot of positive about Ubuntu though.

I have always been interested in DSLinux though...

BTW, what do you experts recommend as the best base for Beowolfing?

:-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 12:12 AM

Refresh thread to bring up with new thread on same subject:

And:

The Symusic font does contain the music symbols requested, but I have not been able to find it in a listing of default fonts that most users are likely to have. It may be common, or it may have come with another program.

I have it, but I don't find it listed at Fonts supplied with Windows XP SP2.

It doesn't appear at Fonts that are installed with Office

For saving on one's own machine, in programs one has, or for printing on a local system, this font could be to used, and the characters are mapped to the ASCII character number range so even Win98 users should be able to see them. They can be entered easily using the Alt-NumPad method, but they'll display as g, h, i in in most fonts until the SyMus font is applied. Each instance of the musical character must be changed to the SyMusic font for the characters to appear, with the rest of the document left in whatever other font you choose since the SyMusic character set contains no "normal characters."

Once you've pasted and formatted one sample of a special character, you can of course copy and past it for multiple uses.

If used on the web, without applying the font each time the character appears using a font statement, individual readers would most likely see the "unk" rectangle or the g, h, i characters. Even if you "format" in a web post, readers who don't have the font will see something other than what you intend, so this is an "okay" method for documents you use at home, (compose, save, print on your own machine) but shouldn't be posted with the expectation that people will be able to read it.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 01:44 AM

A fairly thorough search at Microsoft finds no reference to the Symusic font. A Google search finds it identified as an "Autodesk font" so I may have gotten it with my AutoCad LT. It does appear in a large number of "font packs" available from a number of sources, and may have been used in any number of add-on programs; but so far as I can tell "generic users" are unlikely to have it.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 01:50 AM

The font "Lucida Sans Unicode" is included with WinXP, and probably with some other recent versions, and is the one used in most Microsoft Developer Net articles for illustrating font manipulations in the Unicode character number ranges. It should be included with most default WinXP installations. It does include proper sharp, flat, and natural symbols, but they are "high number" characters that others may not be able to see if you post them.

Sharp:  U+266F       ♯
Natural: U+266E      ♮
Flat: U+266D           ♭

Those who have the Lucida Sans Unicode font can change their browser default font to it, and see if the symbols show immediately above, if they like. They do show in the Preview of this post, IF I change my browser font to the LSU one.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Flat symbol ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 02:03 AM

The "Lucida Sans Unicode" is the only font I've found that is widely installed for Windows users that claims specifically to be a "Unicode Font," and it is NOT A COMPLETE character set.

The ONLY Unicode font supplied by Microsoft that contains glyphs for all characters in the Unicode standard (ver 2.1) is the "Arial Unicode MS" mentioned above at 30 Nov 06 - 06:05 PM. Since the full-set font is 22MB, (and looks like crap), it is NOT RECOMMENDED except for those who simply have to use it.

Note that both of these "Unicode" fonts are sans serif forms. So far as I've found there is no common serif font that includes large numbers of generic Unicode characters in the set.

Several other fonts that are almost universal for Windows users (recent versions) have "Extended Character Sets" to include "letters" commonly used in particular languages, but "music" doesn't appear to be considered a common enough language for these symbols to appear in any that I've found. These fonts may contain some, or in some cases quite a few, "Unicode characters" but the selection is limited.

If the Lucida Sans Unicode font is satisfactory for the rest of your document, in Word you can use it for the whole document. Note that this font displays (and prints) about twice as tall as most fonts of the same "point size," so you may need some other adjustments.

To insert a Unicode character in a Word document using "Lucida Sans Unicode" throughout the document, type the "hex character number" and use Alt-X immediately to change it to the actual character glyph.

This should provide a way to create, save, and print documents for use on your local machine; but there are real problems with posting in this font (aside from it being sort of ugly for general use).

John