Encoding Celtic fontsMichael EversonCeltic fonts should not just be decorative fonts; they should be useful for Celtic languages.To ensure compatibility and reliability of text interchange, standard 8-bit character sets have been developed to serve the Celtic languages.There are now new character set versions which have to be reckoned with when converting text. It is highly recommended to use the new version 2.0 character sets.The advent of the EURO SIGN and the need to represent it in Gaelic fonts has required the devising of new versions of the recommended character sets. Because another character, the TIRONIAN SIGN ET (the "agus" sign), was also added to the Univeral Character Set, it was also necessary to disunify it from the AMPERSAND, to restore the AMPERSAND to its correct position in the code tables, and to add the TIRONIAN SIGN ET to new positions in the code table. Evidence for the use of both AMPERSAND and TIRONIAN SIGN ET in Irish texts can be found at http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/amperagus.pdf
If you are making Celtic fonts, you should use (1) for Mac fonts and (2) for PC fonts. The character sets below show you where you should put these characters when developing Celtic fonts if you wish to support the standard character sets for Celtic. Compliance with these standards is highly recommended. Encoded data is just as important as a beautiful typeface. As technology improves and information about Unicode-ready fonts is available, this page will be updated to reflect it.
The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Macintosh Roman code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the Macintosh code table:
The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Latin 1 code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the Latin 8 code table:
The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Windows code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the CER-GS code table:
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