Trebuchet double quotes
Dave I
Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99
quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different.
Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
Anybody know why this is? Do you think it "lessens" the value of the
font to be like this? I know some people who think so, but I do not
agree.
Thanks
Dave Isaacs
EFS
its not a very "reputable" font. (It maybe great, but not in my eyes.)
The backwards 99 does not really decrease the font's value but test it
out with some other fonts, and see what looks best.
Andreas Höfeld
It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw
the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain
wrong.
In German, we have the quotedblbase #0132 for opening and the
American quotedblleft #0147 as closing quotes. Fonts with mirrored
quotedblleft are unusable for setting German text, and most recent
MS core fonts belong to that group. Tahoma, Courier New, Trebuchet
and Comic Sans belong to that group.
Andreas
Dick Margulis
Andreas Höfeld wrote:
I think the mirrored quotes are influenced by the desire of PowerPoint
users (not a typographically sophisticated user base) to have something
that "looks right" to them. Picture, if you will, a salesman standing up
and giving a presentation in which he waggles his fingers in the air to
represent scare quotes. That hand motion is symmetric, left to right,
and that same salesman, when he throws scare quotes into his PowerPoint
slides, thinks the quotes should look like his finger waggles.
A lot of Microsoft's fonts are designed for use on screen, and this is
not for the sake of people staring at Word documents; it's for the sake
of PowerPoint users. So I think this may be a reasonable hypothesis as
to the reason for this peculiarity.
By the way, you also see the same type of quote sometimes in painted
signs, such as supermarket window posters (back when they were still
painted by hand); so there is some historical precedent.
I think the best solution from the typographer's point of view is just
to avoid these fonts altogether in print, as they weren't designed with
print in mind in the first place.
Andreas Prilop
> I have a question about the style of the double quotes used in the
> Trebuchet MS font. Double quotes are often referred to as 66 99
> quotes, since that's what they look like. But Trebuchet is different.
> Instead of a 66, is has what looks like a backwards 99.
The inept designers didn't understand the difference between Unicode
quotation marks U+201C and U+201F. Several fonts contain glyphs for
U+201F at the position U+201C. Such fonts are unusable for German.
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/quotes.html
--
Top-posting.
What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?
Andreas Höfeld
> Hi Andreas!
>
> Andreas Höfeld <sendn...@vorsicht-bissig.de> [2004-09-02]:
>> Fonts with mirrored
>> quotedblleft are unusable for setting German text, and most recent
>> MS core fonts belong to that group. Tahoma, Courier New, Trebuchet
>> and Comic Sans belong to that group.
>
> :-)
Welcome to Gapstown
http://www.fontgrube.gmxhome.de/de/gapstown.htm
If you are not Joachim Ziebs click here:
http://www.fontgrube.gmxhome.de/en/gapstown.htm :-)
Andreas
Andreas Höfeld
> I think the mirrored quotes are influenced by the desire of PowerPoint
> users (not a typographically sophisticated user base) to have
> something that "looks right" to them. Picture, if you will, a
> salesman standing up and giving a presentation in which he waggles
> his fingers in the air to represent scare quotes.
LOL! I am with you.
> I think the best solution from the typographer's point of view is just
> to avoid these fonts altogether in print, as they weren't designed
> with print in mind in the first place.
I'd even avoid them in Powerpoint presentations ;-)
Though, I somewhat like Trebuchet italic. Next time
I use it with quotes I might do the illegal and appropriate ;-)
Andreas
tls...@concentric.net
<sendn...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed
these words:
>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw
>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain
>wrong.
Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft. I am a
U.S. citizen and I *hate* "mirrored" quotes. As you note, they are
wrong, they also cause compatibility problems when the fonts are not
compatible. It has not much to do with the language because I see the
same problem with English text too.
--
Therese Shellabarger / The Roving Reporter - Civis Mundi
tls...@concentric.net / http://tlshell.cnc.net/
Character
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas Höfeld
> <sendn...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed
> these words:
>
>
>>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw
>>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain
>>wrong.
>
>
> Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
created fonts nor anything else related to the question. All they've
done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote"
function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a
hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print
trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al
to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN
blame Microsoft for!)
Long before there were computers, I and just about everybody else in
grade school was hand-writing pairs of quotation marks that were mirrored.
- Character
Andreas Prilop
>> Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>
> Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
> created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean.
Dick Margulis
Andreas Prilop wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Character wrote:
>
>
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
>>created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
>
>
> I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean.
>
Once Upon A Time, In A Land Far, Far, Away . . .
A little boy with bad hair and funny-looking glasses sat in the middle
of his family's living room, scooting himself around in a circle,
pointing at everything in the room, and screaming, "My Stuff! My Stuff!
My Stuff!"
And _that's_ what the letters "MS" mean. <g>
Character
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Character wrote:
>
>
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
>>created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
> I wonder what the letters "MS" in "Trebuchet MS" mean.
Ok .. BUT
Now that I took a good look at Trebuchet MS, it HAS proper 66-99 (and
6-9) left and right double and single quotes.
Unicode positions 201C and 201D for the left/right double quotes and
2018/2019 for the left/right single quotes.
MS (Still the same one) Word uses these properly when "smart quotes" is
selected. NOW I don't understand the OP's original question.
- Character
Thomas Ferguson
"Character" <Ch...@cters.italic> wrote in message
news:t50_c.678640$6p.1...@news.easynews.com...
I am not surprised by your puzzlement.
If you deactivate the Trebuchet version you now have (probably 1.23) and
install v 1.15 that came with Windows 9x systems, you will see the
mirrored single and double quotes. If you just click on the v 1.15 file
witth v 1.23 installed, 1.23 will display instead.
I think there are now no fonts sourced from MS, recent versions, that
have the "incorrect" forms. However, I have been wrong before.
Typographers tend to be very conservative, it seems, and prefer the
traditional form.
A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for
both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down?
~Tom
Andreas Prilop
>: Unicode positions 201C and 201D for the left/right double quotes and
>: 2018/2019 for the left/right single quotes.
>
> I think there are now no fonts sourced from MS, recent versions, that
> have the "incorrect" forms.
The mirrored glyphs are not, by itself, incorrect. They were just
in the wrong code position. See
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/quotes.html
Character
Tom Ferguson's response to my puzzlement over your question includes the
answer and fix. If you prefer the 66-99 to the mirrored quotes, install
a later version of Trebuchet (1.23) instead of the Windows 9x version
that you probably have. It has the 66-99 varieties.
- Character
Dick Margulis
Thomas Ferguson wrote:
>
> A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for
> both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down?
>
> ~Tom
>
Tom,
In foundry type, where each sort is individually cast, it is possible
that the same _matrix_ is used and just positioned differently in the
casting machine, although I doubt it. It is far more likely that the
same _punch_ is used to make two different matrices--along with the
single quotes and the comma. But the cast sorts are different and not
interchangeable.
If you look at a piece of foundry type, you will find a notch on one
side of the shank. This indicates, by feel, where the bottom of the
character is. That is, when the sorts are lined up in the composing
stick, all the notches form a straight groove at the bottom of the line
of type. Each sort is the full point size in height, as well, so that
the set line of type forms a perfect rectangle. A period is set on a
block of metal that is the same number of points high as the W and the Q
and the apostrphe and the open double quote and the center dot and the
raised dot. Each character is positioned on the block at the location
relative to the baseline where the designer wants it. It is also
positioned left to right so that it has the side bearings that the
designer wants. If you were to invert an open double quote, you would
not get a close double quote; you would get a double comma instead. And
if you inverted an open single quote, you would get a comma that was
more than likely raised or lowered relative to the baseline. But that
would be an easy mistake for the hand pegger to make were it not for the
notch.
Alan
> tls...@concentric.net wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas H feld
> > <sendn...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed
> > these words:
> >>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw
> >>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain
> >>wrong.
> >
> > Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>
> Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
> created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
They created, or at least commissioned, Trebuchet.
"Trebuchet MS available for download
Redmond, WA. - 11 November 1996
As part of Microsoft's strategy to bring improved Typography to the
Internet, a new type family has been added to our collection of
TrueType core fonts for the Web. Trebuchet MS, by Microsoft Type
engineer, Vincent Connare, is now available as a download for
Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh computers."
> All they've
> done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote"
> function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a
> hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print
> trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al
> to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN
> blame Microsoft for!)
That's not the issue here. Word's (and most DTP apps) smart quotes use
standard typographic quotes for fonts that have them; but Trebuchet
doesn't, it has the "head" of the quote always at the top, the tail
always down. As does Tahoma, though as a sans it's not so obvious. The
other MS fonts I've looked at have normal 6/9 style quotes. (Comic
Sans is also a Connare design, but its quotes are just strokes with no
clear head.)
Dave I
unusable in German?
Thanks
Dave I
Andreas Prilop <nhtc...@rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.44.0409021515060.2137-100000@s5b003>...
Character
> Character <Ch...@cters.italic> wrote in message news:<crSZc.649347$y4.1...@news.easynews.com>...
>
>>tls...@concentric.net wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:46:30 +0200, Andreas H feld
>>><sendn...@vorsicht-bissig.de> took a very strange rock and inscribed
>>>these words:
>>>
>>>>It is influence from the American handwriting practise to draw
>>>>the opening and ending quotes as mirrored. IMHO it's just plain
>>>>wrong.
>>>
>>>Excuse me, kindly put the blame where it belongs: on Microsoft.
>>
>>Huh? MS has absolutely nothing to do with this. They have neither
>>created fonts nor anything else related to the question.
>
>
> They created, or at least commissioned, Trebuchet.
> "Trebuchet MS available for download
> Redmond, WA. - 11 November 1996
> As part of Microsoft's strategy to bring improved Typography to the
> Internet, a new type family has been added to our collection of
> TrueType core fonts for the Web. Trebuchet MS, by Microsoft Type
> engineer, Vincent Connare, is now available as a download for
> Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh computers."
>
Yep - Andreas P already yanked my chain on that one :)
>> All they've
>>done (in apps like Word) is offer an alternative (their "smart quote"
>>function" to the "dumb quotes" that were on typewriters for over a
>>hundred years, copied to the earliest computer character sets on print
>>trains & similiar, and brought forward by Apple, IBM, Commodore, et al
>>to the personal computer. (But there's LOTS of other stuff you CAN
>>blame Microsoft for!)
>
>
> That's not the issue here. Word's (and most DTP apps) smart quotes use
> standard typographic quotes for fonts that have them; but Trebuchet
> doesn't, it has the "head" of the quote always at the top, the tail
> always down.
It's been since pointed out that it was an encoding error, fixed in more
recent Trebuchet versions.
> As does Tahoma, though as a sans it's not so obvious.
I'm off to look at Tahoma (XP/SP1 version)
I'm back. Still mirrored "tapered sticks"
> The other MS fonts I've looked at have normal 6/9 style quotes. (Comic
> Sans is also a Connare design, but its quotes are just strokes with no
> clear head.)
Ah yes. Comic Sans. The exemplar of typographic style.
- Character
Thomas Ferguson
"Dick Margulis" <marg...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:10jh922...@news.supernews.com...
:
:
Ahhh. Thanks for the interesting information.
~Tom
Thomas Ferguson
quotes.
~Tom
{snip}
Andreas Höfeld
> unusable in German?
Because the "66" quote is not what it should be but a
mirrored "99".
Andreas H
Dave I
Thanks for all the interesting repsonses.
Dave I
Character <Ch...@cters.italic> wrote in message news:<to1_c.683856$y4.1...@news.easynews.com>...
Character
this a significant difference in German? In English it's only a matter
of æsthetics and typographical style. Does the configuration of the
quotes make a grammatical difference or change the meaning of a phrase?"
- Character
Bill
Tom Ferguson wrote:
A by-the-way question: in metal type, is the same pype piece used for
both left/open and right/close double quote onlt upside-down?
When we used handset metal foundry type or handset Monotype and there
were no open quotes in the font, we used commas rotated 180 degrees for
open quotes.
Bill
Andreas Höfeld
> Andreas Höfeld wrote:
>> Also sprach/Thus spake Dave I:
>>
>>> This is a bit of an aside question, but exactly why are such fonts
>>> unusable in German?
>>
>>
>> Because the "66" quote is not what it should be but a
>> mirrored "99".
>>
>> Andreas H
>>
> I think Dave I's question (which I was about to ask myself) was "Why
> is this a significant difference in German? In English it's only a
> matter of æsthetics and typographical style.
I see. The "problem" is that the mirrored quotes \\ and // in
English/American style still look symmetrical and correspond to
each other. In German we use quotedblbase for opening quote
and for closing what is an opening quote in English: #0147. In
early hot-metal printing I guess the character was simply turned
180 degrees. Your "quotedbl-left" is our "quotedbl-right", so to
speak. A Tahoma-style looks just upside-down.
You can test it to see the difference. Copy the following sentence
and format it once in Tahoma, once in Frutiger (similar shape of
the quotes but correct orientation in Frutiger):
„Dies ist ein Satz auf deutsch.“
The difference will jump into your eyes. It's like a font where
the p looks like a q and they tell you that's what the p looks
like in this typeface, get used to it ;-)
Andreas
Character
Ah.. Thank you.
To *my* eyes it's the same kind of jarring image that upsets a smooth
reading flow as when, in English, some typesetters/typographers/fonts
use left (or right) quotes for both opening AND closing. Such things
make the reader come to a mental stop - however briefly.
- Character
tls...@concentric.net
very strange rock and inscribed these words:
>Long before there were computers, I and just about everybody else in
>grade school was hand-writing pairs of quotation marks that were mirrored.
Mine were straight up and down, when I had occasion to write quotes.