[jats-list] RE: Use of STIX font characters (Archiving v3)

Subject: [jats-list] RE: Use of STIX font characters (Archiving v3)
From: "Newton, Simon - Edinburgh" <snewton@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:43:07 +0000
Hi Chris,

Yes, apologies, I should have stated that I was referring to the non-Unicode
STIX characters, so thanks for clarifying.

Regards - Simon.

-----Original Message-----

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:34:53 -0500
To: "jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Maloney, Christopher (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]" <maloneyc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Use of STIX font characters (Archiving v3)
Message-ID: <5377500297A5C54EAB355784469119B12C314B76EB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> the use of entities defined by the STIX project ... but there is no
> examp=
le=20
> to illustrate the use of a STIX character

I think you are asking primarily about the STIX-specific characters that they
define in the PUA, right?  STIX doesn't define any "entities" (as, for
example, "&circ;").  After some Googling around a bit, I got the sense that
the STIX group was involved in defining entity names earlier on in the
project, and perhaps that's where the wording in the JATS documentation comes
from.  But anyway, I'll just assume you're talking about the STIX-specific PUA
characters.

I agree that one could interpret the JATS documentation as suggesting that
it's okay to go ahead and use these.  On the other hand, it states, "Use of
private publisher entities and the Unicode=99 Private Use Area is discouraged
...", without reference to STIX, so it is a little bit ambiguous.

For many of the STIX-specific PUA characters, it's possible to find standard
Unicode characters to use instead (either a single one, or a combination using
a diacritic), and that would be preferable.  For example, STIX E21B is a right
wavy arrow with slash, and if you follow their master configuration table
(http://www.stixfonts.org/charactertable.html) to the detailed table
(http://www.stixfonts.org/tables/E0_Non-Unicode_Symbols_Thru_E7_RU_V0.9.=
html) you'll see it has an entity name "nrarrw".  This is an entity defined in
isoamsa.ent.  From the W3C XML entities recommendation
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR-xml-entity-names-20100211/isoamsa.html), you
find that they suggest using the combination U+219D, U+0338 for this.

But the example you mention, &xE0D1;, is a STIX-specific PUA character that
doesn't have any entity name, and so it might be hard to look up something
suitable in Unicode.  Whether or not a particular document that uses this
character can be rendered on any system depends entirely on the system.  It's
in the STIX fonts, so a site that delivers these documents as HTML could
either suggest that their users install the STIX fonts on their systems, or
else include it as an embedded font.

As to the question of whether or not the JATS specification intends that these
characters can/should be used directly in documents (without a <private=
-char> element), I can't answer that.

Cheers!

Chris Maloney

________________________________________
From: Newton, Simon - Edinburgh [snewton@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:37 AM
To: jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jats-list] Use of STIX font characters (Archiving v3)

Dear fellow subscribers,

The element reference manual entry for <private-char> state that "This Suite
has been designed [to support] ...the use of entities defined by the STIX
project (http://www.ams.org/STIX/)", but there is no example to illustrate the
use of a STIX character. Each STIX character has a Private Use Area (P=
UA) code point... for example that for "Chemistry: converging bond" is &E0D1;.
So, is it correct to say that one can simply use the STIX code points in this
way in an NLM file (i.e. there is no need to use <private-char> combined with
glyph images)?


Many thanks - Simon.

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