Where can I find information on the different width of the ellipse?
A friend recently claimed: “In most countries of EU we use ellipsis on en-space width. Americans quietly use elipsis on em-space width with big side bearings. That's why it is imposible to use Slimbach’s Arno Pro or Pro Briosso with default ellipsis.”
Can anyone confirm this?
Comments
That’s where I gave up and decided that, since it doesn’t have to align with anything, it just has to look good.
Just as with the dash, the preferred style for ellipsis varies between different typesetting traditions.
In many European traditions, the points are set closed up — i.e. unspaced periods. Most American style guides specify spaced periods. (The amount of spacing can be a hotly debated topic in some circles.)
Frankly, none of the publishers I have ever worked with generally use the encoded ellipsis. For most of the history of type, there was no such thing as a precomposed ellipsis. If it predates digital type at all, I doubt it preceded by much.
The difference in various traditions undoubtedly influences today’s type designers differently.
The convention of designing the ellipsis on a strict em (as documented in the Microsoft character standard, for instance) is more suitable for use as a three-dot leader, as Rob mentioned, rather than for use as a true ellipsis.
As of Mavericks, anyway, it seems like the system might be using three periods now (bottom setting), not the ellipsis, which seems lighter (top setting). It’s hard to say for sure, due to vagaries of rendering.