Roman Numerals - How

1

Hi Folks,

I have a font which is exported with a bold and regular instances.

In each of these I have Roman Numerals with unicodes assigned.

However how do you access them or any ideas of how I can make it more accessible for clients?

Should I create a master & instance of both regular and bold Roman Numerals?

Or create stylistic alternatives?

Thanks so much!

Jennifer

2

I would suggest a stylistic set:

sub one by One-roman;
sub two by Two-roman;
...

Depending on how many Roman numerals you have (Fifty? Hundred? Thousand?), you’ll have to add extra substitutions for those.

3

Thanks Sebastian,

I’m thinking that would work great for just 1-9 but when I get to the likes of likes of where its a bigger number such as 98 or 504 then how would I make that work using stylistic alternatives?

Trying to think where it does not involve so many extra glyphs when I have the following created and want to work it based off these; 1-10 plus the 50, 100, 500 and 1000

Thanks again,

Jen

4

If you really are trying to translate between different numeral systems, it’s going to be quite tricky and code-heavy to accomplish.

I would suggest you leave this in the hands of the font user, and maybe add a stylistic set that displays Roman numerals instead of the associated letters. That way, users can write their own Roman numerals (but will need to know how to calculate them).

sub I by One-roman;
sub V by Five-roman;
sub X by Ten-roman;
sub C by Hundred-roman;
...
5

Do not add substitutions for encoded glyphs.
The best thing to do is to provide a document where they can copy paste the characters from.

6

These Roman numerals in Unicode are not meant to be used like this at all. The Unicode values are just meant for numberings in CJK texts. For writing Roman numerals, use your uppercase Latin IVXLDCM (or lowercase for that matter).

If they are supposed to look different, add a stylistic set for those letters only.

Edit:

Here’s the quote from the Unicode standard, chapter 15:

Roman Numerals. For most purposes, it is preferable to compose the Roman numerals from sequences of the appropriate Latin letters. However, the uppercase and lowercase variants of the Roman numerals through 12, plus L, C, D, and M, have been encoded for compatibility with East Asian standards. Unlike sequences of Latin letters, these symbols remain upright in vertical layout. Additionally, in certain locales, compact date formats use Roman numerals for the month, but may expect the use of a single character.

1 Like
7

Thanks Rainer, That makes sense and thank you for taking the time to share.

8

Thanks a lot for this reference! I didn’t know about this specific section.