Unicode conflict between /Delta and Increment

Andrea T.
Andrea T. Posts: 40
in Type Design Software
hello guys,
I have a question for you. I'm using fontlab 5.1 and i have some problem on unicode name for the letter /Delta and /Increment: the unicode of /Delta has to be 0394 but fontlab assign automatically (in the properties windows) the code 2206 that was actually the code for /increment. Anyone can help me?
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Comments

  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    I usually duplicate and encode both glyphs, the one for math and the one for Greek.
  • Bhikkhu Pesala
    Bhikkhu Pesala Posts: 210
    I usually create Increment as a composite of Delta. 

    Another conflict to look out for is Greek lowercase mu, and and the microsign µ, which is named "mu" due to legacy reasons. They may need different designs. 
  • Andrea T.
    Andrea T. Posts: 40
    i ve already tried to do that but thats not solve the problem at all. it drive me mad. i've deleted the /increment, then i've renamed it, nothing happen, Fontlab continue to assign the wrong unicode to /Delta. On the other hand /mu and /µ don't have any problem.
  • Andrea T.
    Andrea T. Posts: 40
    i ve already tried to do that but thats not solve the problem at all. it drive me mad. i've deleted the /increment, then i've renamed it, nothing happen, Fontlab continue to assign the wrong unicode to /Delta. On the other hand /mu and /µ don't have any problem.
  • Andrea T.
    Andrea T. Posts: 40
    I m sorry for the echo :) i'm a newbie...
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    Note that you can edit the Standard.nam file — this is what FL uses to assign Unicode values to glyph names, and vice versa — in the FontLab user Mapping folder, or define a different .nam file for FontLab to use.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    use unicode naming for the math symbols: /uni0394/uni03BC
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,227
    use unicode naming for the math symbols: /uni0394/uni03BC

    Those aren't the math symbols, those are the Greek alphabetic codepoints.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    sorry, backwards, 2206 and 00B5
  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 944
    Uni-names are always safe and most precise.

    Personally, I tend to just double-encode. I also manually override the FL default unicode assignment when working in Font Lab.

    Be aware that the AGLFN (Adobe Glyph List For New Fonts) still associates Delta with u+2206 for legacy reasons. It’s not just a Font Lab thing.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    Yes, and the AGLFN does that because there are still chunks of OS machinery and other things that do that. A common glyph name for the increment symbol is in fact /Delta.

    You can manually override this in FontLab Studio (or FontLab VI) if you like, but for various dumb technical reasons, it is slightly safer to use the /uni names for the Greek lowercase mu and cap Delta. The symbols can pretty safely have either the Greek names or the /uni names.

    So, that is why FontLab has the defaults it does. Sigh.

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