Star Micronics 4 manual Symbolsets, Whatare symbolsets?

3.3SYMBOLSETS

Let’s summarizebriefly,to put the subjectof symbolsets in context. The attributesof a font determinewhat that font will look like when it is printed. We covered all but orientationat the start of this chapter, and orientationin the last chapter.A font’sattributesinclude:

orientation(portraitor landscape) symbol set(whichwe’ll look at next) spacing(monospacedor proportional)

pitch (10 or 16.66charactersperinch,for example) font height (measuredin points)

style (uprightor italics) strokeweight (light,mediumor bold) typeface(LinePrinter,Courierand so on)

Though they are not font attributes,such printing features as subscripts, superscriptsand underliningare treated along with fonts in the following chaptm. Each emulationhas its own way of providingthese features.

Incidentally,the best way to underlineis to use the underlinecommandin the emulationyou are using,insteadof backspacingand overprintingwith the separateunderlinecharacter(-). If youdo thelatterwithproportionally spacedtext, you’llusuallyfind the underliningis too long for the text.

3.3.1 Whatare symbolsets?

Keyboardsdifferfromcountryto country,The Britishneed theirf symbol, thqFrenchneed theirq and 6, the Spanishneedtheir ~and fietc. Scientists needparticularmathematicalsignstoo.ThereeasilycouIdbe fourhundred or more possiblesymbolsfor any givenfont.

However,the numberof symbolsprintersstorefor a font is limitedto 256 slots,asin ASCII.Sosomesymbols,ortheorderof somesymbols,candiffer in any font.Each uniqueselectionand arrangementof symbolsis a symbol set (sometimescalled a “graphicset” or “characterset”).

The symbolat position91 for exampleis an open bracket,[ , in the usual ASCIIsymbolset. Butthe samepositionhoIdsA (capitalA withan umlaut) in the German symbolset.

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