laser-lovers@uw-beaver (04/10/85)
From: jqj%gvax@Cornell.ARPA (J Q Johnson) Re a recent posting discussing ditroff standards, one of the major limitations of ditroff is the small number of special characters on the S character set. The ditroff manual documents slightly over 60 such characters plus those Greek letters that do not look very much like Roman. A set of 60 special characters isn't very large. The DITROFF set does not even include such useful characters as forall or thereexists. There have been various efforts to document more complete sets of special characters, ranging from the Metafont AMSY set (also quite small) to Xerox's Character Set Standard (quite large). Has anyone made similar efforts to standardize a larger set of special characters in the ditroff world? In ditroff, of course, one could (assuming it existed) mount the AMSY or CMSY font and get special characters by a font switch. But that's not very device independent. What is needed, I think, is a widely accepted convention about what additional (non-S) special characters should exist, and standardized 2-character names for them. Then I could count on saying "\(*fa x" and know that if a forall symbol was available I would get it. Anyone have other thoughts on this?
laser-lovers@uw-beaver (04/13/85)
From: Lee Moore <lee@rochester.arpa>
This discussion of typesetter independent troff standards comes right
at a time when I was going to bring up the same issue on net.text .
I agree with J.Q. Johnson that there really needs to be some standard
name to symbol mapping for troff. I think everybody adds their own
new names when they re-target troff for a new device. I know that I
do and I know that Bell Labs and Imagen have.
An example of the possible confusion is in Bill Tuthill's message.
He suggests using \(bv as the breve symbol. Unfortuately this conflicts
with the use of that same symbol in C/A/T troff to mean "bold verticle".
(which is needed to build large brackets)
Below is my table of name mappings. Do other people have ones to add?
Lee Moore
Senior Grad. Student
-------------------------------------------------------------
Special character names in Troff
In troff, special characters are named with one or two character sequences.
With the advent of typesetter-independent Troff, implementors have been
making up new special character names for symbols that weren't on the
Wang (nee Graphics Systems) C/A/T typesetter at Bell Labs.
In a effort to help standardize the names of special characters, the following
table of known names is provided. It sorted in the ASCII collating
sequence. Note that one-character names are listed here with a preceding
backslash. This is because it is the way they come out in the DESC file.
The list has all the old Troff symbols plus others that I have run into.
name source english description
!= AT&T C/A/T not equals
** AT&T C/A/T math star
*A AT&T C/A/T Alpha
*B AT&T C/A/T Beta
*C AT&T C/A/T Xi
*D AT&T C/A/T Delta
*E AT&T C/A/T Epsilon
*F AT&T C/A/T Phi
*G AT&T C/A/T Gamma
*H AT&T C/A/T Theta
*I AT&T C/A/T Iota
*K AT&T C/A/T Kappa
*L AT&T C/A/T Lambda
*M AT&T C/A/T Mu
*N AT&T C/A/T Nu
*O AT&T C/A/T Omicron
*P AT&T C/A/T Pi
*Q AT&T C/A/T Psi
*R AT&T C/A/T Rho
*S AT&T C/A/T Sigma
*T AT&T C/A/T Tau
*U AT&T C/A/T Upsilon
*W AT&T C/A/T Omega
*X AT&T C/A/T Chi
*Y AT&T C/A/T Eta
*Z AT&T C/A/T Zeta
*a AT&T C/A/T alpha
*b AT&T C/A/T beta
*c AT&T C/A/T xi
*d AT&T C/A/T delta
*e AT&T C/A/T epsilon
*f AT&T C/A/T phi
*g AT&T C/A/T gamma
*h AT&T C/A/T theta
*i AT&T C/A/T iota
*k AT&T C/A/T kappa
*l AT&T C/A/T lambda
*m AT&T C/A/T mu
*n AT&T C/A/T nu
*o AT&T C/A/T omicron
*p AT&T C/A/T pi
*q AT&T C/A/T psi
*r AT&T C/A/T rho
*s AT&T C/A/T sigma
*t AT&T C/A/T tau
*u AT&T C/A/T upsilon
*w AT&T C/A/T omega
*x AT&T C/A/T chi
*y AT&T C/A/T eta
*z AT&T C/A/T zeta
+- AT&T C/A/T plus-minus
-> AT&T C/A/T right porinting arrow
12 AT&T C/A/T 1/2
14 AT&T C/A/T 1/4
34 AT&T C/A/T 3/4
<- AT&T C/A/T left pointing arrow
<= AT&T C/A/T <= (less than or equal)
== AT&T C/A/T identically equal
>= AT&T C/A/T >= (greater than or equal)
Fi AT&T C/A/T ffi ligature
Fl AT&T C/A/T ffl ligature
I! UofR inverted ! (used in Spanish)
I? UofR inverted ? (used in Spanish)
\- AT&T C/A/T current font minus
\^ AT&T C/A/T 1/12 em half-narrow space character
\| AT&T C/A/T 1/6 em narrow space character
aa AT&T C/A/T acute accent
an Imagen boolean "and" (/\)
ap AT&T C/A/T approximates (middle level tilde)
br AT&T C/A/T box verticle rule
bs AT&T C/A/T Bell System logo
bt Imagen bottom (perpendicular) (_|_)
bu AT&T C/A/T bullet
bv AT&T C/A/T bold verticle (middle segment of backet building chars)
ca AT&T C/A/T cap (set intersection)
ci AT&T C/A/T circle
co AT&T C/A/T copyright symbol ("c" in a circle)
ct AT&T C/A/T cent sign
cu AT&T C/A/T cup (set union)
da AT&T C/A/T down arrow
dd AT&T C/A/T double dagger
de AT&T C/A/T degree
dg AT&T C/A/T dagger
di AT&T C/A/T divide
dm Imagen diamond
em AT&T C/A/T 3/4 em dash
eq AT&T C/A/T math equals (invarient w.r.t. current font)
es AT&T C/A/T empty set
fa Imagen for-all (inverted A)
ff AT&T C/A/T ff ligature
fi AT&T C/A/T fi ligature
fl AT&T C/A/T fl ligature
fm AT&T C/A/T footmark
ga AT&T C/A/T grave accent
gr AT&T C/A/T gradient
hy AT&T C/A/T hyphen
ib AT&T C/A/T improper subset
if AT&T C/A/T infinity
im Imagen implies
io Imagen if and only iff ( <=> )
ip AT&T C/A/T improper superset
is AT&T C/A/T integral sign
lb AT&T C/A/T left bottom of big curly bracket
lc AT&T C/A/T left ceiling (left top of big square bracket)
lf AT&T C/A/T left floor (left bottom of big square bracket)
lh AT&T C/A/T left pointing hand
lk AT&T C/A/T left center of big curly bracket
lo Imagen boolean "or" (\/)
lt AT&T C/A/T left top of big curly bracket
mc Imagen math composition (centered small circle)
mi AT&T C/A/T math minus (invarient w.r.t. current font)
mo AT&T C/A/T member of
mu AT&T C/A/T multiply symbol
no AT&T C/A/T "not" symbol
or AT&T C/A/T "or" bar
pd AT&T C/A/T partial derivative
pl AT&T C/A/T math plus (invarient w.r.t. current font)
pt AT&T C/A/T proportional to
rb AT&T C/A/T right bottom of big curly bracket
rc AT&T C/A/T right ceiling (right top of big square bracket)
rf AT&T C/A/T right floor (right bottom of big square bracket)
rg AT&T C/A/T registered symbol ("r" in a circle)
rh AT&T C/A/T right pointing hand
rk AT&T C/A/T right center of big curly bracket
rn AT&T C/A/T root en extender (matches top of "\(sq")
rt AT&T C/A/T right top of big curly bracket
ru AT&T C/A/T baseline rule
sb AT&T C/A/T subset of (right horseshoe)
sc AT&T C/A/T section marker
sl AT&T C/A/T slash (matching backslash)
sp AT&T C/A/T superset of (left horseshoe)
sq AT&T C/A/T square
sr AT&T C/A/T square root
st Imagen turnstyle ( |- )
te Imagen there exists (reflected E)
to Imagen top (inverted bottom) (see "\(bt")
ts AT&T C/A/T terminal sigma
ua AT&T C/A/T up-arrow
ul AT&T C/A/T under-rule (mates with "\(br")
~= AT&T C/A/T approximately equals
Sources:
AT&T C/A/T the original troff implementation at Bell Labs
for the C/A/T phototypsetter.
Imagen Imagen Corp., Silcon Valley
UofR University of Rochesterlaser-lovers@uw-beaver (04/13/85)
From: Dan Berry <dberry@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA> At UCLA, I mounted the various computer modern fonts with special characters and the various cmsy and amsy fonts as special fonts in positions after S and just invented two charcter names for the glyphs. A number of the names I got from an extended S that came from Lou Salkind. Other names I invented ( and believe me, it was not easy working with only two characters). Sometimes the two characters are physically reminiscent and other time, they are reminiscent of the name. In any case we do have \(fa as for all, \(te as the exists, etc. For what it's worth here is our can DESC table: (RS is R with only the greek letters that look like latin letters defined this is so that if one has mounted computer modern (cR) in 1, the \(*A comes out looking like the same font as \*(G and not using the cR A. XX is a font impaled out of cR cI ,etc to get at the 0th characters of them - recall that a troff character of 0 is taken as a null) # Imagen Imprint-10 Printer with canon fonts (-Tcan) # pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 fonts 20 R I B ts SS cR cI cB sR sI sB HS HF CW S RS ay sy cs XX sizes 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22 24 28 29 36 40 60 0 res 240 hor 1 vert 1 unitwidth 16 paperwidth 2040 paperlength 2640 # the second line of the table below is the set of symbols likely to be # used as .tc characters so that they end up with indices < 255 charset \| \^ \' \` \e \- \_ ** =. == em en eq hy mi rn ru ~= ~~ ul != *A *B *C *D *E *F *G *H *I *K *L *M *N *O *P *Q *R *S *T *U *W *X *Y *Z *a *b *c *d *e *f *g *h *i *k *l *m *n *o *p *q *r *s *t *u *w *x *y *z +- -+ -> -| .| .. 0/ 12 14 34 2a 3| :> <- <: << <> <= >= >> A9 AA AC AD AE AF AN AV B1 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B< B> BA BB BC BD BE BF BL BO BR BX C0 C1 C2 C+ C- C. C/ CI CL Cx DA DI DL DR FA Fi Fl GE GI GR GT HT II L. IG ID IH IL IC IP IS IU IF IQ IW LB LE LT MT O/ OE PP PR SA SB SC SD SE SF SG SH SI SJ SK SL SM SN SO SP SQ SR SS ST SU SV SW SX SY SZ Sl TD TO TU U+ UA UB UE UL UR Um VA [[ ]] [^ aa ac ae al ap b/ b0 b9 ba bb br bs bu bv bx ca cd ce ch cl ci co ct cu da dd de dg di dl dm dr ep es fa fe ff fi fl fm fr ft ga gd ge go gr gu ha hc iF ib if in io ip is it jt l. l/ l\ la lb lc ld le lf lg lh lk lo lm lq lt m. ma mc me ml mo mu nd ne nm nn no nr o/ ob oe or ot pd pl po pp pr pt qd qq qt qu r/ r\ rb rc re rf rg rh rk rp rq rt rv si su sA sB sC sD sE sF sG sH sI sJ sK sL sM sN sO sP sQ sR sS sT sU sV sW sX sY sZ sb sc sl sp sq sr ss st ta te tk tm tp tr ts ua ue ui uj um wb wp |- || xx OU MD -, XV ZR CG HC HO HR QU PT QM HP HQ Dan Berry