Introduction
When I was regularly working with common specialized font faces about a decade ago, I constructed a Microsoft Excel worksheet to serve as a map of fairly common specialized font faces. As I used it an hour ago to look up a couple of characters in the Wingdings font face that has shipped with Windows for as long as I can remember, it occurred to me that others would benefit from it.
Background
When you select any of the specialized fonts, such as Wingdings, that are covered by the table, then start typing, whatever you type is rendered in the selected font, which isn't very useful. Since you usually need only a character or two, it's much more efficient to look it up in a chart than to play guessing games with the keyboard.
Using the code
Since the chart is quite wide, and requires access to all of the fonts to render correctly, I included it in both Excel and one-page HTML formats, both of which are in the article download.
Using the table is straightforward.
- Locate the column labeled with the name of the font you want to use. For instance, Wingdings are in column H.
- Scan down the column until you see the image that you want.
- Look in column A of the row that you identified in step 2. Make note not only of the letter, but whether it is upper or lower case. Upper and lower case letters almost always render a completely different glyph for the corresponding upper and lower case letters.
Points of Interest
Saving as a single-page HTML file is a fairly recent, and pr
History
2019/05/14 is the initial publication date.
I deliver robust, clean, adaptable, future-ready applications that are properly documented for users and maintainers. I have deep knowledge in multiple technologies and broad familiarity with computer and software technologies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
While it isn't perceived as sexy, my focus has always been the back end of the application stack, where data arrives from a multitude of sources, and is converted into reports that express my interpretation of The Fundamental Principle of Tabular Reporting, and are the most visible aspect of the system to senior executives who approve the projects and sign the checks.
While I can design a front end, I prefer to work at the back end, getting data into the system from outside sources, such as other computers, electronic sensors, and so forth, and getting it out of the system, as reports to IDENTIFY and SOLVE problems.
When presented with a problem, I focus on identifying and solving the root problem for the long term.
Specialties: Design: Relational data base design, focusing on reporting; organization and presentation of large document collections such as MSDS libraries
Development: Powerful, imaginative utility programs and scripts for automated systems management and maintenance
Industries: Property management, Employee Health and Safety, Services
Languages: C#, C++, C, Python, VBA, Visual Basic, Perl, WinBatch, SQL, XML, HTML, Javascript
Outside Interests: Great music (mostly, but by no means limited to, classical), viewing and photographing sunsets and clouds, traveling by car on small country roads, attending museum exhibits (fine art, history, science, technology), long walks, especially where there is little or no motor traffic, reading, especially nonfiction and thoughtfully written, thought provoking science fiction
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