Arial Unicode MS

Arial Unicode MS是一种无衬线的 TrueType类型电脑字体。

概要

Arial Unicode MS是电脑字体 Arial的拓展版本之一。比起Arial，它的线高更大，省略了字符间距，添加了足够的字形来覆盖Unicode 2.1版本，因此它支持大多数微软代码页，但也导致其庞大的容量 (22 MB)。^[1] 它包括表意符号排版表，但和 Arial不同的是，它在 14–18 [[点]时]不需要抗锯齿平滑处理，而且它只有正体字符，而没有斜体版本。 Arial Unicode MS 通常随Microsoft Office发布，但它也随Mac OS X v10.5捆绑发布。但微软许可Ascender公司以“Arial Unicode”的名称进行单独出售。

由于使用同样的引擎进行描摹而没有根据不同尺寸进行调整， Arial和Arial Unicode MS中的字符看起来有些许宽和圆。 Arial Unicode MS横排文本看起来具有更宽的线间距，因为它拥有较大的字框 (为显示一些拓展字符Arial Unicode MS需要更大的空间) 和描摹限制，而字符形状保持不变。 Arial Unicode MS本身缺乏间距对定义的性质也影响了一些描摹过程中的字符间距离。

历史和传播

Arial是由罗宾·尼古拉斯(Robin Nicholas)和帕特里希亚·萨云德在1982年设计，并在1990年作为TrueType字体发布的。1993年到1999年间，由Monotype公司的技术人员拓展为 Arial Unicode MS并在1998年作为TrueType字体单独发布并卖给微软。

Monotype Imaging目前扔拥有Arial 和 Arial Unicode MS商标，但微软持有字体的专有许可权。目前微软将字体许可转给Ascender Corporation销售。而且事实表明它还授权给了苹果公司，因为苹果在2007年 10月16日宣布其新版操作系统 Mac OS X v10.5 ("Leopard")将捆绑Arial Unicode字体。有意思的是，Leopard也预定搭载其他 several other 原先微软独占的字体，包括Microsoft Sans Serif, Tahoma 和 Wingdings。

From mid-2001 through mid-2002, Arial Unicode MS was also available as a separate download for licensed users of the standalone version of Microsoft Publisher 2000 SR-1, which did not ship with the font. The freely downloadable version was withdrawn after Microsoft Publisher 2002, which included the font, began shipping. The withdrawal coincided with the withdrawal of the free downloads of Microsoft's "Core fonts for the Web". Numerous companies, organizations, educational establishments and even governments were directing users to the download without referencing the need for a valid Publisher or Office license or any Microsoft operating system.^[2]

版本

0.84版本通过Microsoft Office 2000及其除Publisher 2000 SR-1以外的单品软件发布，包含51180个字形 (38911个字符)，支持32代码页，并包括拉丁字符和汉字OpenType排版表信息。支持的代码页有1250 (拉丁2:东欧), 1251 (西里尔字母), 1252 (拉丁 1), 1253 (希腊字母), 1254 (土耳其字母), 1255 (希伯来文), 1256 (阿拉伯文), 1257 (Windows Baltic), Code page 1258 (Vietnamese), 437 (US), 708 (Arabic; ASMO 708), 737 (希腊文), 775 (MS-DOS 波罗的语), 850 (WE/拉丁 1), 852 (拉丁 2), 855 (IBM 西里尔语;基础俄语), 857 (MS-DOS IBM Turkish), 860 (MS-DOS 葡萄牙文), 861 (MS-DOS I冰岛语), 862 (希伯来文), 863 (MS-DOS 加拿大法语), 864 (阿拉伯文), 865 (MS-DOS Nordic), 866 (MS-DOS 俄语), 869 (IBM 希腊文), 874 (Thai), 932 (JIS/日语), 936 (简体中文), 949 (韩文Wansung), 950 (繁体中文), "Macintosh Character Set" (US Roman), and "Windows OEM Character Set". 它覆盖了包括无控制字符的Unicode2.0所有码位。

0.86版覆盖范围和0.84版本一样。

1.00 和 1.01 版通过 Microsoft Office 2002 (Microsoft Office XP), Microsoft Office 2003 及其单品软件发布。它包含 50,377个字形 (38,917个字符)，将合并发音符减少到72个，将复杂技术字符增加到123个，将私有使用区域字符增加到43个，将空格控制符减少到57个。 1361 (韩文 Johab) was added. It adds layout tables for Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kana (Hiragana & Katakana), Kannada, and Tamil. Its Han Ideographic tables were updated to support vertical writing.^[3] It covers all code points containing non-control characters in Unicode 2.1.

错误

Demonstration of the double-width diacritic bug in Arial Unicode MS. The first row shows how Arial Unicode MS incorrectly renders a diacritic that is correctly placed between the letters "k" and "p". The second row shows how the diacritic is rendered in the correct position only if placed after the "p". The third row shows how the correct placement is rendered in TITUS Cyberbit Basic, which does not have the bug.

All versions of Arial Unicode MS deal with double-width diacritic characters incorrectly, drawing them too far to the left by one character width. According to the Unicode Standard 4.0.0, section 7.7 combining double diacritics go between the two characters to be marked. However, to make text look correct in Arial Unicode MS, the double-width diacritic must be placed after both characters to be marked. This means that it is not possible to make text that renders these characters correctly in both Arial Unicode MS and in other (correctly designed) Unicode fonts.

This bug affects the rendering of text written in the 国际音标 and in ALA-LC Romanization for non-Latin-script languages.

The last first and last second letters in Latin small ligatures fi, fl, ffi, ffl, long st, st are not connected.

The Arabic Five Pointed Star (U+066D) has 6 points instead of 5.

参见

Other well-known fonts with Unicode coverage include Bitstream Cyberbit, TITUS Cyberbit Basic, Code2000, Doulos SIL, Lucida Sans Unicode, Free software Unicode typefaces, and Unicode fonts.

注释

^ "Article Q287247: Description of the Arial Unicode MS font in Word 2002". Microsoft Knowledge Base. 27 July 2006. .
^ Hudson, John. Arial Unicode MS no longer available. A12n collaboration mailing list. 9 October 2003. .
^ Alan Wood. Unicode fonts for Windows computers. 5 July 2007.

外部链接

Font catalogue entries: Microsoft (1.01), Microsoft (0.84), Ascender Corporation.

[1] "Article Q287247: Description of the Arial Unicode MS font in Word 2002". Microsoft Knowledge Base. 27 July 2006. .

[2] Hudson, John. Arial Unicode MS no longer available. A12n collaboration mailing list. 9 October 2003. .

[3] Alan Wood. Unicode fonts for Windows computers. 5 July 2007.

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