Circled zero. Any real-world use cases?

Ermin Međedović

Most of my typefaces include circled numerals in the character set. I’m currently drawing them for an upcoming family and started wondering about the usefulness of a circled zero.

Has anyone encountered a real-world use case for it?

The only one that comes to mind is when a font provides only single-digit circled numerals  (①–⑨) and someone needs to compose numbers such as ①⓪, ②⓪, ③⓪, etc. by combining a circled 0 with another digit.

Curious whether there are practical applications I’m missing.

Ray Larabie

I often see them used in instruction manuals to refer to parts on a diagram. There are specialty circled numeral fonts that go up to 999999. Musicians and architects seem to be the main buyers.

Ermin Međedović

Ray Larabie said:

I often see them used in instruction manuals to refer to parts on a diagram. There are specialty circled numeral fonts that go up to 999999. Musicians and architects seem to be the main buyers.

Yes, for constructed multi-digit circled numbers I use a feature with .init, .medi and .fina glyphs, so things like circled 12, 356, 1024, or longer numbers can be built automatically.

What I’m wondering about is the simple standalone ⓪. 

Qwerasd

Searching for the query

"⓪" filetype:pdf

on Google reveals that, at least in terms of PDFs that are visible online, the overwhelming use case for the circled digit 0 is in rating scales starting at 0, for questionnaires.