techniques doc: character entity references for math symbols

Hello, Some of you may get this twice - those of you who have previously
participated in the math and science discussions. If you are able, a response
by the end of the day would be appreciated. From my tests, most of the
character entities defined in HTML4 for math symbols were NOT supported by
Communicator 4 and Explorer 4. Thus, is the following technique valid? 
>
> 2. Do not use  to "generate" mathematical symbols. Use HTML character
entities
> (or numerical reference) instead. (FONT face should be used only for
> suggesting style) For example: a to generate the Greek lower case alpha.
this
> is incorrect as a conforming browser should render the Latin letter lower
> case a in this case. 

Follows is part of the source file that I tested - the character entity
information is taken from the HTML4 Rec.. In communicator I get question
marks,
in Explorer I get boxes. If you are able to produce something else, please let
me know what I have missed. I don't see that "symbol" is a valid attribute of
"face" but I tried it anyway, just for grins. Using FONT face for the whole
doc
produces interesting results  Also note that the *only* character entities
that
are recognized are the last two (for division). It seems that everything
included in the list of "Character entity references for ISO 8859-1
characters"
is supported by both. However, note that very few in this ISO list are related
to math.    

  -- greek capital letter alpha, U+0391 

 -- greek capital letter beta, U+0392 

 -- greek capital letter gamma, U+0393 ISOgrk3 

 -- greek capital letter delta, U+0394 ISOgrk3 

 -- greek capital letter epsilon, U+0395 

 -- greek capital letter zeta, U+0396 

 -- greek capital letter eta, U+0397 

 -- greek capital letter theta, U+0398 ISOgrk3 

 -- greek capital letter iota, U+0399 

 -- greek capital letter kappa, U+039A 

 -- greek capital letter lambda, U+039B ISOgrk3 

 -- greek capital letter mu, U+039C 

 -- greek capital letter nu, U+039D 

 -- greek capital letter xi, U+039E ISOgrk3 

 -- greek capital letter omicron, U+039F 

  -- greek capital letter pi, U+03A0 ISOgrk3 

! -- greek capital letter rho, U+03A1 

 -- for all, U+2200 ISOtech 

 -- partial differential, U+2202 ISOtech 

 -- there exists, U+2203 ISOtech 

 -- empty set = null set = diameter, U+2205 ISOamso 

 -- nabla = backward difference, U+2207 ISOtech 

 -- element of, U+2208 ISOtech 

	 -- not an element of, U+2209 ISOtech 

 -- contains as member, U+220B ISOtech 

 -- n-ary product = product sign, U+220F ISOamsb 
 

÷ is a more convenient form than w
........

Received on Monday, 3 May 1999 12:31:23 UTC