Symbol (typeface)

Symbol is one of the four standard fonts available on all PostScript-based printers, starting with Apple's original LaserWriter (1985). It contains a complete unaccented Greek alphabet (upper and lower case) and a selection of commonly used mathematical symbols. Insofar as it fits into any standard classification, it is a serif font designed in the style of Times Roman.

Due to its non-standard character set, lack of diacritical characters, and type design inappropriate for continuous text, Symbol cannot easily be used for setting Greek language text, though it has been used for that purpose in the absence of proper Greek fonts. Its primary purpose is to typeset mathematical expressions.

Encoding

The font was created by Adobe and has its own character encoding, with the Greek letters arranged according to similar Latin letters (Chi = C, etc.). The document describing the mapping to Unicode code points^[1] was created before several of the characters were added to Unicode, so the original mapping assigns several of the characters to the Private Use Area (PUA). A later version of the font by Apple^[2] uses more recently introduced Unicode code points instead. The table below mostly follows the Apple mapping.

Legend:

Alphabetic

Control character

Numeric digit

Punctuation

Extended punctuation

Graphic character

International

Undefined

Symbol (typeface)
	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1_	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
2_	SP 0020 32	! 0021 33	∀ 2200 34	# 0023 35	∃ 2203 36	% 0025 37	& 0026 38	∍ 220D 39	( 0028 40	) 0029 41	* 002A 42	+ 002B 43	, 002C 44	− 2212 45	. 002E 46	/ 002F 47
3_	0 0030 48	1 0031 49	2 0032 50	3 0033 51	4 0034 52	5 0035 53	6 0036 54	7 0037 55	8 0038 56	9 0039 57	: 003A 58	; 003B 59	< 003C 60	= 003D 61	> 003E 62	? 003F 63
4_	≅ 2245 64	Α 0391 65	Β 0392 66	Χ 03A7 67	Δ 0394 68	Ε 0395 69	Φ 03A6 70	Γ 0393 71	Η 0397 72	Ι 0399 73	ϑ 03D1 74	Κ 039B 75	Λ 039C 76	Μ 039D 77	Ν 039E 78	Ο 039F 79
5_	Π 03A0 80	Θ 0398 81	Ρ 03A1 82	Σ 03A3 83	Τ 03A4 84	Υ 03A5 85	ς 03C2 86	Ω 03A9 87	Ξ 039E 88	Ψ 03A8 89	Ζ 0396 90	[ 005B 91	∴ 2234 92	] 005D 93	⊥ 22A5 94	_ 005F 95
6_	 F8E5 96^{[lower-alpha 1]}	α 03B1 97	β 03B2 98	χ 03C7 99	δ 03B4 100	ε 03B5 101	φ 03C6 102	γ 03B3 103	η 03B7 104	ι 03B9 105	ϕ 03D5 106	κ 03BB 107	λ 03BC 108	μ 03BD 109	ν 03BE 110	ο 03BF 111
7_	π 03C0 112	θ 03B8 113	ρ 03C1 114	σ 03C3 115	τ 03C4 116	υ 03C5 117	ϖ 03D6 118	ω 03C9 119	ξ 03BE 120	ψ 03C8 121	ζ 03B6 122	{ 007B 123	\| 007C 124	} 007D 125	~ 007E 126	127
8_	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139	140	141	142	143
9_	144	145	146	147	148	149	150	151	152	153	154	155	156	157	158	159
A_	€ 20AC 160	ϒ 03D2 161	ʹ 2032 162	≤ 2264 163	⁄ 2044 164	∞ 221E 165	ƒ 0192 166	♣ 2663 167	♦ 2665 168	♥ 2666 169	♠ 2660 170	↔ 2194 171	← 2190 172	↑ 2191 173	→ 2192 174	↓ 2193 175
B_	° 00B0 176	± 00B1 177	ʺ 2033 178	≥ 2265 179	× 00D7 180	∝ 221D 181	∂ 2202 182	• 2022 183	÷ 00F7 184	≠ 2260 185	≡ 2261 186	≈ 2248 187	… 2026 188	⏐ 23D0 189	⎯ 23AF 190	↵ 21B2 191
C_	ℵ 2135 192	ℑ 2111 193	ℜ 211C 194	℘ 2118 195	⊗ 2297 196	⊕ 2295 197	∅ 2205 198	∩ 2229 199	∪ 222A 200	⊃ 2283 201	⊇ 2287 202	⊄ 2284 203	⊂ 2282 204	⊆ 2286 205	∈ 2208 206	∉ 2209 207
D_	∠ 2220 208	∇ 2202 209	® 00AE 210^{[lower-alpha 2]}	© 00A9 211^{[lower-alpha 2]}	™ 2122 212^{[lower-alpha 2]}	∏ 220F 213	√ 221A 214	⋅ 22C5 215	¬ 00AC 216	∧ 2226 217	∨ 2227 218	⇔ 21D4 219	⇐ 21D0 220	⇑ 21D1 221	⇒ 21D2 222	⇓ 21D3 223
E_	◊ 25CA 224	〈 3008 225	® 00AE 226^{[lower-alpha 2]}	© 00A9 227^{[lower-alpha 2]}	™ 2122 228^{[lower-alpha 2]}	∑ 2211 229	⎛ 239B 230	⎜ 239C 231	⎝ 239D 232	⎡ 23A1 233	⎢ 23A2 234	⎣ 23A3 235	⎧ 23A7 236	⎨ 23A8 237	⎩ 23A9 238	⎪ 23AA 239
F_	240	〉 3009 241	∫ 222B 242	⌠ 2320 243	⎮ 23AE 244	⌡ 2321 245	⎞ 239E 246	⎟ 239F 247	⎠ 23A0 248	⎤ 23A4 249	⎥ 23A5 250	⎦ 23A6 251	⎫ 23AA 252	⎬ 23AB 253	⎭ 23AC 254	255
	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F

Beyond the use of Private Use Area code points, Adobe and Apple have a few other minor differences in code point assignments. Character 0x27 (called "suchthat" in the Adobe document) is assigned by Adobe to U+220B (∋, CONTAINS AS MEMBER) but by Apple to U+220D (∍, SMALL CONTAINS AS MEMBER), which more closely resembles the symbol usually used for such that. Characters 0xE1 and 0xF1 are assigned to different sets of angle brackets: by Adobe to U+2329 and U+232A (〈 and 〉), by Apple to U+3008 and U+3009 (〈 and 〉). Apple also introduces the Apple logo as PUA code point U+F8FF for character 0xF0, a position not used in the original Adobe font (and not assigned in the table above).

Lowercase Greek letters appear in italics in many older versions of Symbol. While both Adobe and Apple agree on assigning characters 0x66 and 0x6A respectively to Unicode code points U+03C6 (φ, GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI) and U+03D5 (ϕ, GREEK PHI SYMBOL), some versions of the font interchange these two symbols.

Font comparison

Uppercase
Default	Α	Β	Γ	Δ	Ε	Ζ	Η	Θ	Ι	Κ	Λ	Μ	Ν	Ξ	Ο	Π	Ρ		Σ	Τ	Υ	Φ	Χ	Ψ	Ω
Times	Α	Β	Γ	Δ	Ε	Ζ	Η	Θ	Ι	Κ	Λ	Μ	Ν	Ξ	Ο	Π	Ρ		Σ	Τ	Υ	Φ	Χ	Ψ	Ω
Symbol	Α	Β	Γ	Δ	Ε	Ζ	Η	Θ	Ι	Κ	Λ	Μ	Ν	Ξ	Ο	Π	Ρ		Σ	Τ	Υ	Φ	Χ	Ψ	Ω
Symbol*	A	B	G	D	E	Z	H	Q	I	K	L	M	N	X	O	P	R		S	T	U	F	C	Y	W
Lowercase
Default	α	β	γ	δ	ε	ζ	η	θ	ι	κ	λ	μ	ν	ξ	ο	π	ρ	ς	σ	τ	υ	φ	χ	ψ	ω
Times	α	β	γ	δ	ε	ζ	η	θ	ι	κ	λ	μ	ν	ξ	ο	π	ρ	ς	σ	τ	υ	φ	χ	ψ	ω
Symbol	α	β	γ	δ	ε	ζ	η	θ	ι	κ	λ	μ	ν	ξ	ο	π	ρ	ς	σ	τ	υ	φ	χ	ψ	ω
Symbol*	a	b	g	d	e	z	h	q	i	k	l	m	n	x	o	p	r	V	s	t	u	f	c	y	w

^*encoded as ASCII for older versions of the font

HTML

The use of the Symbol font in mathematical expressions was part of a W3C recommendation for HTML 4. ^[3] At the time of that original recommendation (December 1997), the only native way to display many mathematical symbols in HTML was a direct use of the "Symbol" font. Such explicit references are now strongly discouraged for new documents, but they survive in many existing pages on the Internet. Also, the Symbol font provides graphics that are specifically intended as components in the two-dimensional layout of mathematical expressions. Examples include upper and lower parts of brackets or integral signs and a square-root sign without a vinculum.

Until 2010 or so, the Unicode glyph U+221A corresponding to the square-root sign (the HTML entity is named radic and has decimal code 8730) was usually rendered with a short built-in vinculum. That made it an inadequate graphical replacement for the original character from the Symbol font (itself designed around a slanted line extending all the way to the upper-right corner of the character box, without any spacing). The more recent renditions of the HTML radic entity (U+221A) no longer feature any vinculum and are thus more compatible with the standard graphical representation introduced in the Symbol font. Both styles of the square-root glyph (with or without a short vinculum) have the same disembodied meaning, so the integrity of the Unicode repertoire is not compromised by this adjustment.

Full legacy support of the Symbol font is provided by major modern web browsers like Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. That support involves a specific handling of Adobe's special encoding, which is not properly implemented in at least some versions of other browsers, including Opera, Safari and Firefox. Such browsers do not correctly render legacy HTML documents that make explicit use of the Symbol font.

Notes

↑ The character at 0x60 does not appear in Unicode. It is described in the Adobe map as "RADICAL EXTENDER", with the Adobe glyph name "radicalex", and is mapped to the PUA code point U+F8E5. It is an over-bar for extending the radical sign over the operands of the radical operator. Some versions of the font implement this as a non-spacing character so that it can be combined (like non-spacing diacritical marks) with the operands it covers.
1 2 3 4 5 6 The characters ®, ©, and ™ are encoded twice: one version has serifs, the other is sans-serif. The Adobe mapping uses PUA for all six characters to ensure that the presence or absence of serifs is observed, while the Apple font maps the serif versions to the standard Unicode code points and the sans-serif versions to PUA code points (but not the same ones Adobe used).

References

↑ "Adobe Symbol Encoding to Unicode". Unicode.org. 30 March 1999.
↑ "Map from Mac OS Symbol character set to Unicode 4.0 and later". Unicode.org. 5 April 2005.
↑ W3C (1998). "Introduction to character entity references".