The various documents linked below were developed mainly in support of
an attempt to gain acceptance into Unicode of additional symbols used in
mathematical and technical publishing. These documents include all the
proposals (and their revisions) made to the Unicode Technical Committee
(UTC) since work on the project began in 1997 as well as a great deal of
background information compiled in support of these proposals. Thus, this
page forms a historical outline of the Unicode facet of the STIX project.
- 2006/10/20
-
Oops! Another omission caught and corrected. Here are the new
table file and the applicable
layout description.
- 2006/10/18
-
Some minor errors and omissions have been found and corrected in
the table file. The
layout description
remains the same. If anyone notices any remaining errors, please
send the details to Barbara Beeton.
- 2006/09/02
-
The final glyph delivery has been made, and the fonts are undergoing
packaging and a final design review. In the meantime, Unicode 5.0
has been finalized, including some additional math characters.
The STIX master table has been updated with the new codes from
Unicode 5.0 (and some new symbols as well).
TeX control sequences have been assigned to all symbols that are
likely to occur in math or other technical contexts (e.g., phonetics);
Latin alphabetic characters that are intended for use in text,
regardless of language, have not been assigned TeX control sequences
since there are other, more preferred, methods of accessing them.
All glyphs have unique Type 1 names. Many of these correspond
to simple Unicodes. Some are formed from compound Unicodes (e.g.,
"uni227620D2") or from qualified Unicodes (e.g.,
"uni019B.var"). Finally, some glyphs that do not have
Unicode representations have been assigned names with the prefix
"stix" and a 4-hex-digit code in the range EExx of the
Unicode Private Use Area (e.g., "stixEE24").
The updated table file and the corresponding
layout description are
posted. The column layout remains the same; values of a few
flags have changed, and there are several new sources listed for
TeX control sequence names. Scott Pakin's
Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List, available from CTAN,
has been of enormous help in avoiding name clashes.
- 2005/09/26
-
Creation of the glyphs for the STIX fonts is almost complete, although
a full design review is required. Delivery of most of the remaining
glyphs has turned up some items which were not in the master table,
and these have been added. Some new characters accepted by Unicode
have been added as well. For symbols which have not been accepted by
Unicode, "final" STIX IDs have been assigned in the
Unicode Private Use Area (PUA), and Type 1 glyph names derived
accordingly. The updated table file and the corresponding
layout description are
posted. The column layout remains the same; only values of a few
flags have changed.
The next task is to assign TeX control sequence names to the symbols
that do not already have them. In order to make use of names already in
general use and to avoid name clashes, we will refer to Scott Pakin's
Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List, which is available from CTAN.
- 2005/06/17
-
An inventory of the glyphs delivered for the STIX fonts has been
completed, and a request has been made for what remains. The
STIXFonts web site has
been updated with the latest information.
Unicode 4.1 charts
are posted with quite a few additions, and the
pipeline
still shows a few math symbols waiting for final approval.
The table file has been
updated and rechecked; quite a few minor glitches were found and
corrected. The layout
description has been updated, mostly to reflect changes in type-1 glyph
names and a new flag value; the column layout remains the same.
- 2004/06/18
-
Work on the STIX fonts continues, but is nearing completion.
For more information, see the
STIPub web site.
Unicode 4.1 is under construction, and some additional symbols
(including an undotted j!) have been accepted; see
the Unicode
"pipeline" for details. The new symbols have been
added to the table file,
along with some more error corrections. Some new flag values have
been added to the layout
description, to indicate the beta status of some new table
entries; the column layout remains the same as the last version.
- 2003/10/10
-
Concurrently with work on the STIX fonts, the master
table file has been
updated to correct errors and add occasional items uncovered
subsequent to the latest Unicode release. The
layout remains the
same as the version of 2003/05/02.
- 2003/10/03
-
Unicode 4.0
was published. This version includes a number of mathematical symbols
discovered after the release of version 3.2.
A project undertaken in the W3C in coordination with ISO will update
TR 9573-13 to include Unicode references along with entity names. A
draft version of the
new report is now available.
- 2003/08/31
-
Unicode Technical Report #25,
Unicode Support for
Mathematics, has been released in final form, as approved by
the Unicode Technical Committee.
- 2003/05/02
-
In preparation for the release of the STIX font, Type 1 glyph names
are being added to the master table
file. This requires a change in the
layout.
- 2002-2003
-
Work continues on the STIX font. For details, see the
STIPub web site.
- 2002/09/11
-
At the 22nd International Unicode Conference, Murray Sargent presented
the paper Unicode
Support for Mathematics, introducing the mathematics content of
Unicode 3.2 and how it can be used.
- 2002/06/24
-
The STIPub web site is now live:
http://www.stixfonts.org/
A news
story on the Bulletin site of the Seybold Reports announces the
public debut of the project and summarizes its goals.
- 2002/06/10
-
Another gap. In the interim, some exciting progress has been made:
- Unicode 3.2 was released on 2 April 2002. A Unicode Consortium
press
release briefly describes the features relevant to the STIX effort.
- The Unicode code charts
have been updated for version 3.2.
- A Draft Unicode Technical Report (#25) entitled
Unicode support for
mathematics was issued on 8 May 2002. The content and approach
are still somewhat fluid, and comments are welcome.
- The master table file has been
updated to contain the final values in Unicode 3.2. Here is the
layout; it remains unchanged
from the version of 2000/10/19.
Work is now underway on creation of the fonts. That effort will be the
subject of a separate web site, under the aegis of STIPub. A link will
be provided with the site becomes "live".
- 2001/05/05
-
Once again, this file hasn't been kept current, owing to the press of
other business; when time permits, the gap will be filled in.
A new version of the master table file
incorporates corrected values for some Unicodes as well as about 70 new
symbols identified since the initial submission in 1998. The layout hasn't
changed; see the link at 2000/10/19.
- 2001/02/21
-
Mathematical Markup Language
(MathML) version 2.0
was released as an official W3C Recommendation.
- 2000/10/19
-
The master table file has been
updated to incorporate this new and changed information:
- Unicodes and character descriptions as shown in the latest Unicode
charts (see below);
- reference to appendix in the font RFP which identified symbols to
be included in the STIX font;
- a ``type'' code determining how many forms of each symbol are to
be included in the font;
- a ``multiplication factor'' indicating the actual count of glyphs
to be created for each symbol in the font.
A brief explication of the layout
of this table is available; this file identifies the location and content
of each field in the table.
Draft Unicode charts including the math symbols were available for preview
from the Unicode site; these preliminary charts have been superseded by
the Unicode 3.2 code charts.
- 2000/03/09
-
This file hasn't been kept current, owing to the press of other business;
when time permits, the gap will be filled in.
Briefly, activity has proceeded on two fronts.
- Refinement of the symbols proposal was completed, and the material
incorporated into more extensive proposals for consideration by the
ISO WG2 Working Group. After recommending some relatively minor changes,
WG2 incorporated the symbols and mathematical alphanumerics into two
documents to be balloted in the usual manner.
- An RFP was sent out to candidate font providers, for development
of a STIX font. A provider was selected, and contract negotiations are
nearly complete. A schedule for doing the work is under construction.
- 2000/02/10
-
Good news!
The UTC at their meeting last week accepted the symbols proposal; a few
minor changes were suggested, and these have been posted in a revised version
which will be frozen for the record. Code points were provisionally
assigned to all the distinct symbols; here is a list of the new Unicodes,
keyed to the temporary IDs of the proposal. Some additions have been made
to this complement, most notably a ``variation selector'' (which is the
formal designation for the MVT used in the proposal) and a collection of brace
pieces representing a grandfathered set used with a prominent word processor.
The next step is consideration of the proposal by the ISO WG2 Working Group.
This will occur at their next meeting, March 21-23, in Beijing.
- 1999/12/27
-
An updated version of the symbols proposal
is available in draft (PDF) form. Many symbols have been removed as individual
entities, and replaced by composites or alternate forms indicated by a
Math Variant Tag (MVT). The symbol charts in the PDF file have not yet been
changed. HTML versions of the updated charts can be viewed as follows:
- A:
Letter-like symbols, diacritics, punctuation
- B:
Arrows and harpoons, combinations, fishtails
- C:
Large operators, binary operators, relational operators
- D:
More relations
- 1999/12/22
-
A new working draft, Mathematical Markup Language
(MathML) version 2.0
was released. Chapter 6, Entities, Characters and Fonts, is still
waiting for Unicode action on the STIX proposal, and remains preliminary.
- 1999/11/14
-
The proposals for mathematical alphanumerics and for mathematical and
technical symbols were discussed at the October 26-29 meeting of the
UTC. Some additional changes have been requested
in the symbols proposal before the next meeting (January 31-February 3);
an updated version will be posted when ready.
Another proposal for math/technical symbols,
Mathematical
brace pieces, was also considered and accepted. This covers a number
of pieces used to create various delimiters as composites, and is intended
to support existing character sets from Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, and some
other sources; it is not intended to cover the existing TeX glyphs from
the cmex font -- for input, storage, searching, etc., the use of a single
code remains the method of choice, leaving the actual composition of the
glyphs to the typesetting software and fonts.
- 1999/10/16
-
The proposal
Request
for assignment of codes to mathematical and technical symbols
(L2/99-244R) has been revised; this version will be considered
at the October 26-29 meeting of the UTC.
- 1999/09/20
-
Revision 1 of the
Proposal
to encode mathematical alphanumeric characters (L2/99-195) was
presented to the WG2 meeting last week, and was accepted unanimously:
``WG2 accepts the proposal for 991 (subject to verification of this
number) new mathematical alphanumeric symbols in document N2086, for
inclusion in 10646-2, in the range D400--D7FF in Plane 1. The project
editor is to select the appropriate character names and block name in
the preparation of the text for inclusion in part 2.''
The 2nd working draft of 10646-2 was accepted and the project editor
instructed to prepare the text for the CD (committee draft), including
the mathematical alphanumerics, and submit this document for ballot.
After the CD is accepted, two more ballots are required: DIS (Draft
International Standard), and IS (International Standard). This process,
if expedited, can be completed in about a year and a half.
- 1999/08/26
-
The proposal entitled
Request
for assignment of codes to mathematical and technical symbols
(L2/99-244) has been updated in response to a review by several UTC members,
and will be carried into the semiannual Unicode Conference for additional
feedback.
An updated version of the table file
has also been posted. It contains changes reflecting updates to the
symbols proposal as well as some new material from IEEE; the format has
not changed from the last version posted.
- 1999/08/11
-
New versions of two proposals are now in advanced draft stage. After a few
final corrections, these may be submitted to the WG2 meeting in September
and will be on the agenda of the October UTC meeting.
The table file (prepared by Barbara)
has once again been amended, to add references to the new version of the
symbols proposal. This is a very large ASCII flat file, with material
position-aligned into columns. This is the current table structure.
start |
end |
name |
description |
1 |
1 |
flag |
marks questioned items of various types |
2 |
5 |
uniq |
Unicode point in hex |
7 |
10 |
xref |
cross-reference code |
12 |
15 |
AFII |
AFII identifier in hex |
17 |
20 |
rq-1 |
ID of requested symbol in June 1999 proposal to UTC |
22 |
25 |
rq-2 |
ID of requested symbol in August 1999 proposal to UTC |
27 |
27 |
C |
character class code |
29 |
38 |
entity |
entity name suggested |
40 |
48 |
set |
ISO entity set |
49 |
52 |
els |
Elsevier handle |
53 |
53 |
|
source of TeX name |
54 |
79 |
AMS/TeX name |
TeX or AMSTeX name |
80 |
96 |
APS |
American Physical Society name |
97 |
106 |
AIP |
American Institute of Physics name |
107 |
116 |
ACS |
American Chemical Society name |
117 |
136 |
IEEE |
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers name |
137 |
167 |
Wolfram |
Mathematica name |
168 |
180 |
Springer |
Springer name |
181 |
185 |
KAP |
Kluwer Academic Publishers handle |
186 |
192 |
SciDes |
Design Science MTCode |
193 |
197 |
M-Pi |
Adobe MathematicalPi font reference |
198 |
end |
description |
descriptive text |
- 1999/08/09
-
A revised version of the symbols proposal has been posted (see above).
The revised charts, showing (low resolution versions of) all the symbols
can be viewed separately. The collection has been divided into four parts:
- A:
Letter-like symbols; diacritics and combining symbols; punctuation
- B:
Arrows and harpoons; combinations with arrows; fishtails
- C:
Large operators; binary operators; relations
- D:
Relations (continued); geometric shapes; miscellanea
- 1999/07/12
-
At the June UTC meeting, three math proposals were considered:
- coding of alphanumeric characters: accepted; editorial revisions are
still underway, but the most
recent version can be viewed
- coding
of math symbols: the UTC formally endorsed creation of ``a new
proposal for math symbols following the WG2/Unicode proposal guidelines
with Murray Sargent as project editor''; it is planned to complete this
draft by the end of August, and circulate it at the semiannual Unicode
conference in order to get more exposure and support from potential
users.
- math
variant tags: rejected after discussion; symbols formerly proposed
to be coded using this method will be folded back into the main
symbols proposal.
- 1999/07/12
-
The post-UTC-meeting version of the table
file prepared by Barbara. The table is a very large ASCII flat file.
The structure is that of a very wide table.
This version incorporates the reference IDs from the proposal for coding
of math symbols as well as new material from Design Sciences and the
Adobe MathematicalPi fonts.
- 1999/06/01
-
A revised
proposal was prepared for presentation to the UTC, excluding nearly
all alphabetics (which had become the subject of a related proposal
prepared by Murray Sargent, a UTC member from Microsoft), and consolidating
most of the information on symbols from the December 1998 proposal and
the March 1999 addendum.
A second proposal concerning math variants
was also submitted, introducing tags to extend the symbol complement in
regular ways, e.g. by converting a binary to an n-ary operator, adding
negation, etc. This material was kept separate since it was expected
to raise discussion not relevant to whether the symbols in the first
document would be acceptable to UTC.
- 01 Sep 1997
-
There are new files merging the character information from all of the
sources in a sort of Universal form. As of today
not all the links have been verified, so it is best to look at the files
from an index, and that's where the previous link gets you.
- 04 Aug 1997
-
Chris Hamlin has added a new form of the
AIP list
including Unicode equivalences, to the others available, such as Arthur Smith's
APS list including
a comparison with ISO characters, and those to be had below from Elsevier and
the AMS.
- 31 July 1997
-
There are now compilations of characters in table form with images
from Unicode and Elsevier based on the
ISO tables
(ISOAMS[A-C], ISOPUB, etc.).
A link pointed out by Arthur Smith to the recent (21 July 1997)
Working Draft on Fonts
of the W3C CSS committee is added below in the reference materials.
-
- 28 July 1997
-
It seems that it may be more useful to have
full listings with images of all the
characters in the chosen signatures, not just those in the Elsevier and
other lists. This allows one to see at a glance which have been left out.
Correction to the links to images in some files posted last week have
been made.
The LaTeX 3 Project's early report on math symbols authored by Justin
Ziegler, as pointed out by Barbara Beeton, deserves linking here too.
It lists the symbols required for math/technical composition, arranged
into 256-element fonts for use with LaTeX. There is a
local copy for convenience, perusable as
TeX source if you wish.
The original can be found on
any CTAN node in the area info/ltx3pub/l3d007.tex . This reference is
relative to a TeX archive root node as follows:
- 19 July 1997
-
Building on some of the recent material there is now a pair of sets
of comparative listings of characters covering those items of the Elsevier
collection already in Unicode. The comparison is with AFII numbers,
AMS names and ISO 9573-13 names. There are forms with and without the added
convenience for viewing, but disadvantage for loading, of images from
both Elsevier and Unicode. The whole has, of course, still the status
of a working draft.
The collection is divided into signatures, which are taken to be subsets
of characters whose Unicodes are of the form NN** in hex; each signature
is divided into tables of up to 16 characters of the form NNM*, which may
be thought of as sheets of characters. It is
hoped that this way the loading of tables will be quicker. Since the
symbols of interest to STIX are taken from a restricted part of the
Unicode set the signatures that have been covered in this list are
those with NN drawn from the list
(00,01,02,03,1E,1F,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,30)
Initially only the characters in the Elsevier set are shown in this listing
although it is keyed by Unicode numbers. Those not already in Unicode are
intended to be prepared for consistency with Unicode numbers from the
private zone signatures E5, E6, and E7.
- 18 July 1997
-
Although much work has been done in the last week there has been
nothing new posted on the STIX site. This is now changing with a bang.
There are new tables from Barbara Beeton:
and Arthur Smith has made available to the list his
ongoing
work on the
fonts for APS work provided by Beacon. This includes new image files.
Nico Poppelier's new files weren't simply made available
by posting, but now can be seen here too:
- 24 June 1997
-
Tables from the AMS containing work of
Barbara Beeton on checking AFII codes and TR 9573 entity names.
- 19 June 1997
-
These working tables have been supplied by
Nico Poppelier and the folks at Elsevier:
- A three-column table of Unicode (if available),
Elsevier grid coordinate and Elsevier entity name, as
a text file, stix.dbs
of 1105 lines.
- A PostScript file, stix.ps
(ca. 4152K) which contains three pages of tables of the Elsevier
collection of glyphs in the grid mentioned above.
This has had the specification of A4 paper size
removed so that it can work with US printers.
- A long (25804 lines, half of them blank) text
file, unicode.text
from the Unicode consortium giving the Unicodes and
corresponding decriptive text in upper-case.
- An archive file, stix.tar,
as originally sent by Nico (ca. 4557K), containing the 3 files
mentioned above (with the A4 option specified).
- A long (878 rows) HTML
table derived from the above by skipping the
letters at the beginning with added columns, one blank
for Elsevier Descriptions and one of GIF images
showing the Elsevier glyphs.