Re: East Asian Emphasis Marks (Japanese bouten, etc)

Ken Lunde wrote:
> Fantasai,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
>> Could you explain that in a little more detail, please?
>>
>> I take what you said to mean that
>>   - U+FE45 and U+FE46 have their own glyphs
> 
> Correct.
> 
>>   - these glyphs are intended to be scaled down to 50% of the text  size
> 
> Scaling to 50% size is one possible use. They can also be used at  their 
> original size, of course.
 >
>>   - therefore in the font they are approximately twice the size of the
>>     comma rather than approximately the same size
> 
> The comment above applies here.

If they're designed to be used at 50% size, then that's how they should
be used. They would look much too big at full size if that were the case.
Similarly if they're designed to be used at full size, then they should
not be scaled down.

>>   - therefore an application wishing to use U+FE45 as an emphasis mark
>>     should scale its glyph down by half before rendering it
>> Is that correct?
> 
> It depends on whether it is to be used as an annotation, which would  
> lend itself to scaling, or inline as part of the text. At least in  
> Japanese, typical usage would be like ruby, meaning as annotations  
> above other characters.

In what context would U+FE45 be used inline as part of the text, other
than in a sentence describing the punctuation mark itself?

> We chose to implement our ruby glyphs, including these annotative  
> marks, in a way that requires applications to scale them to the  
> intended size. Why? Prior to having fonts with dedicated glyphs for  
> ruby (meaning the complete set of kana, plus a few more symbols),  
> applications were already scaling standard glyphs. We found it  
> practical to preserve that aspect of usage, and to design the glyphs
> so that they would look appropriate when scaled.

How are ruby glyphs related to normal glyphs in the font? (I.e. how
would an application access them)

~fantasai

Received on Tuesday, 14 March 2006 01:56:56 UTC