View source for Template:Unicode/doc

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==Purpose==

This template was created to allow easy switching to [[unicode]] fonts.  This is useful for pages that require unicode to display correctly, such as those written in [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (commons: [[International Phonetic Alphabet]]).  On some browsers, such as [[Microsoft]] [[Internet Explorer]], unicode does not seem to be activated automatically, so this template lets you force it manually.

One might ask why bother to use a template for this.  Simply:
# The template code is easier to remember than the HTML font style specification, which must be entered fairly precisely for this to work.
# The template code, although not completely transparent, is more transparent than asking new editors to use inline HTML CSS style tags.  At least for many editors.
# Using the template allows us to change unicode display properties for all articles that employ the template at once.  This is useful as the preferred fonts for displaying unicode are somewhat disputable and will change as new, more complete unicode fonts continue to be developed.  The way font specification works, we can provide a whole list of suggested fonts and the first one that is active on the user's machine will be selected.

:When the page says Unicode, Internet Explorer will activate Unicode.
:However, when the page says Arial, Internet Explorer will display Arial. While Arial does include e. g. basic Greek and Cyrillic, it does not include e. g. IPA extensions. These are displayed in Arial anyway when the page says so – that is, they are displayed as the famous rectangles.
:David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 00:44 | 2006/5/16
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==Guts of template==
<nowiki><span class="Unicode">{{{1}}}</span></nowiki>. 
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wherein class="Unicode" is defined in [[MediaWiki:Common.css]].

==Examples==
<nowiki>{{unicode|&amp;#x22CA;}} and {{unicode|&amp;#x22C9;}}</nowiki> give {{unicode|&#x22CA;}} and {{unicode|&#x22C9;}}.

==Related pages==
* {{tl|latinx}} &mdash; favours fonts supporting all the characters in the Latin Exteneded B range (includes Old/Middle English).
* {{tl|IPA}} &mdash; International Phonetic Alphabet.
* {{tl|polytonic}} &mdash; Polytonic Greek.
* {{tl|CDM}} &mdash; Forces a non-buggy font when using Combining Diacritical Marks.
* {{tl|mufi}} &mdash; Forces a font which supports the [[MUFI]] characters.

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[[Category:Unicode templates]]
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