Star Micronics 8 Series manual Symbol Sets, What are symbol sets?

SYMBOL SETS

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 16.66charactersper inch, for example)

. font height (measuredin points)

. style (uprightor italics)

●stroke weight (light,mediumor bold)

✎typeface (LinePrinter,Tms Romn,Courierand so on)

Though they are not font attributes,such printing features as subscripts, superscriptsand underliningare treated along with fonts in the following chapters.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 thelatterwith proportionally spacedtext, you’llusuallyfind the underliningis too long for the text.

What are symbol sets?

Keyboardsdifferfromcountryto country.The Britishneed theirf symbol, the Frenchneedtheir Qand 6, the Spanishneed their ~and il etc. Scientists need particularmathematicalsignstoo.Thereeasilycouldbe fourhundred or more possiblesymbolsfor any givenfont.

However,the numberof symbolsprintersstore for a font is limitedto 256 slots,asin ASCII.Sosomesymbols,ortheorderofsomesymbols,candiffer in any font. Eachuniqueselectionand arrangementof symbolsis a symbol set (sometimescalled a “graphicset” or “characterset”).

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

41