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Re: superior numerals
- To: "Melissa O'Neill" <oneill@cs.sfu.ca>
- Subject: Re: superior numerals
- From: Thierry Bouche <Thierry.Bouche@ujf-grenoble.fr>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 11:37:58 +0200 (MET DST)
- Cc: fontinst@cogs.susx.ac.uk (Fontinst)
- In-Reply-To: <199807072003.NAA29632@daisy.cs.sfu.ca>
- References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980707090504.993F-100000@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu><199807072003.NAA29632@daisy.cs.sfu.ca>
» One of these days, I'd like to make some three-quarter-height lining
» numerals (that aren't superscripted), just to see how they compare to
» (hanging) text numerals. With a multiple master font, it should be quite
» possible to produce an optically correct set. Of course, then we'd need
» a Karl Berry code for them too.
it could be a nice solution for a simple enhancement to the current
use of lining tabular digits in maths formulas, as was pointed to me
by bill troop on comp.fonts years ago.
Inside text, i think these digits simply fit in the (stupid) american
scheme according to which small caps are a `typographically correct'
way to insert all caps words in a running text without destroying too
much the color of the paragraph [this motto being a pure invention of
acronyms lovers]. This ignores that small caps are a third alphabet
that carries semantic (or meta-linguistic) meaning, not a typographic
variant of uppercase. This has to do with the question of
letterspacing or not small caps [fontinst puts letterspacing in all
its small caps fonts (by default) which is not always what you want].
»
» Melissa.
»
» P.S. This talk really belongs on the tex-fonts mailing list since it is
» not fontinst specific.
»
i'm not even sure it's tex specific;-)