Very odd: dot operator shown as s with dot on Firefox, when Cambria used as bold

Jukka K. Korpela

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Dec 11, 2012, 3:59:22 PM12/11/12

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When using U+22C5 DOT OPERATOR in Cambria font in bold, Firefox displays
it as letter s with dot above. Demo:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html

I can see no logical explanation to this, especially since Chrome and IE
display it OK.

Or is this just my Firefox (17.0.1, Win 7)?

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Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Andreas Prilop

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Dec 14, 2012, 8:48:24 AM12/14/12

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On Tue, 11 Dec 2012, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> When using U+22C5 DOT OPERATOR in Cambria font in bold,
> Firefox displays it as letter s with dot above. Demo:
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
> I can see no logical explanation to this, especially since
> Chrome and IE display it OK.
> Or is this just my Firefox (17.0.1, Win 7)?

There has been some confusion in the MS Windows operating system
between U+00B7, U+2219, U+22C5:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%2200B7%22+%222219%22+site:microsoft.com

Include U+00B7 and U+2219 in your test. It may well be that IE
uses the same glyph for all three characters.

What do you get in word processors?

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Jukka K. Korpela

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Dec 14, 2012, 11:45:42 AM12/14/12

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2012-12-14 15:48, Andreas Prilop wrote:

>> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
[...]

> Include U+00B7 and U+2219 in your test.

Done.

> It may well be that IE
> uses the same glyph for all three characters.

It doesn’t, but you need to zoom in to see the differences in Cambria.

> What do you get in word processors?

In Word 2007, U+22C5 in Cambria turns to a question mark in a rectangle
when I bold the text. In LibreOffice, it becomes bolder.

Now I realized I should take a look at the Firefox rendering using the
Font Information add-on. It shows the problem glyph as Cambria, not as
Cambria Bold as it does for real bold Cambria. This is odd because the
glyph is clearly of bold design.

The analysis is confirmed by looking at the Cambria Bold font in DTL
OTMaster Light: Cambria Bold lacks any glyph for U+22C5.

So apparently browsers just apply algorithmic bolding to U+22C5 in
Cambria, and the problem can be identified as a Firefox bug in
implementing such “fake bolding”. It seems that for some odd reason,
Firefox changes the character to U+1E61 and then bolds the glyph (that’s
at least what I gather from Font Information, but to my eye, the result
looks just the same as U+1E61 in Cambria Bold – but maybe algorithmic
bolding works that way in this case?).

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

tlvp

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Dec 18, 2012, 3:34:52 AM12/18/12

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FWIW, my particular edition of FF (still v. 16.0.2 on 32-bit Win Vista)
uses Lucida Sans Unicode for the LH dot on the Browser default Bold line,
but uses Times New Roman Bold for the last two dots there (according to
the Font Information add-in I have.

For the Cambria Bold line, the first dot is again Lucida Sans Unicode (!),
whereas the last two are now (as expected) Cambria Bold.

HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

Jukka K. Korpela

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Dec 18, 2012, 1:57:43 PM12/18/12

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2012-12-18 10:34, tlvp wrote:

>>>> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
[...]

> FWIW, my particular edition of FF (still v. 16.0.2 on 32-bit Win Vista)
> uses Lucida Sans Unicode for the LH dot on the Browser default Bold line,

Strange... I tested on Firefox 9 (!) on Vista, and shows bold U+22C5 in
Meiryo UI Bold. After updating Firefox to the latest version, the result
is still the same.

The strange thing is that it's "Lucida Sans Unicode" plain, regular
typeface (Lucida Sans Unicode has no bold typeface). But maybe your
Vista computer lacks Meiryo UI - actually Microsoft info says that it is
shipped with Win 7 and Win 8, so on Vista it presumably must have come
with some added software.

> but uses Times New Roman Bold for the last two dots there

That's natural because Times New Roman is the common browser default.

> For the Cambria Bold line, the first dot is again Lucida Sans Unicode (!),

In my Vista test, I saw Meiryo UI Bold there, too.

The mystery here is why in your case Firefox uses algorithmic bolding on
Lucida Sans Unicode and not the on the declared font Cambria.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

tlvp

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Dec 19, 2012, 4:47:00 AM12/19/12

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On Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:57:43 +0200, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> 2012-12-18 10:34, tlvp wrote:
>
>>>>> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
> [...]
>> FWIW, my particular edition of FF (still v. 16.0.2 on 32-bit Win Vista)
>> uses Lucida Sans Unicode for the LH dot on the Browser default Bold line,
>
> Strange... I tested on Firefox 9 (!) on Vista, and shows bold U+22C5 in
> Meiryo UI Bold. After updating Firefox to the latest version, the result
> is still the same.
>
> The strange thing is that it's "Lucida Sans Unicode" plain, regular
> typeface (Lucida Sans Unicode has no bold typeface). But maybe your
> Vista computer lacks Meiryo UI - actually Microsoft info says that it is
> shipped with Win 7 and Win 8, so on Vista it presumably must have come
> with some added software.

Actually, this Vista system of mine has (not Meiryo UI but) both Meiryo and
Meiryo Bold, meiryo.ttf & meiryob.ttf, each in both normal and italic form.
These copyright Microsoft, 2006, and in "version 5.00".

>> but uses Times New Roman Bold for the last two dots there
>
> That's natural because Times New Roman is the common browser default.
>
>> For the Cambria Bold line, the first dot is again Lucida Sans Unicode (!),
>
> In my Vista test, I saw Meiryo UI Bold there, too.
>
> The mystery here is why in your case Firefox uses algorithmic bolding on
> Lucida Sans Unicode and not the on the declared font Cambria.

Also, what makes FF sometimes opt for a Meiryo font and other times not,
despite availability thereof? Mysteries, mysteries! Cheers, -- tlvp

Jukka K. Korpela

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Dec 19, 2012, 6:08:02 AM12/19/12

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2012-12-19 11:47, tlvp wrote:

> Actually, this Vista system of mine has (not Meiryo UI but) both Meiryo and
> Meiryo Bold, meiryo.ttf & meiryob.ttf, each in both normal and italic form.
> These copyright Microsoft, 2006, and in "version 5.00".

My Windows 7 has version 6.0, from 2009.

> Also, what makes FF sometimes opt for a Meiryo font and other times not,
> despite availability thereof?

If one version contains the required character in a bold typeface and an
older version doesn't, this would explain some differences. But the
mystery is that the difference is a wrong direction. And on my Win 7,
Firefox 17, Meiryo UI Bold contains the DOT OPERATOR and it is displayed
if I use e.g.
⋅

But is it just me? Can anyone with a similar system confirm whether they
see the bug (s with dot above) when they use
⋅
?

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Andreas Prilop

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Dec 19, 2012, 3:13:08 PM12/19/12

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On Wed, 19 Dec 2012, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> Can anyone with a similar system confirm whether they see the bug
> (s with dot above) when they use
> ⋅

What happens with , , ?

Make your page http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
validate.

Jukka K. Korpela

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Dec 19, 2012, 3:31:08 PM12/19/12

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2012-12-19 22:13, Andreas Prilop wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Dec 2012, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>
>> Can anyone with a similar system confirm whether they see the bug
>> (s with dot above) when they use
>> ⋅
>
> What happens with , , ?

OK (middle dot in Cambria, probably fake italic but does not
matter), others show s with dot above in fake bold fake italic Cambria.

> Make your page http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html
> validate.

Done.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Andreas Prilop

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Dec 20, 2012, 9:26:31 AM12/20/12

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On Wed, 19 Dec 2012, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/test/dotop.html

Cambria:
IE 8 and FF 3.6 on Windows 7 show "circle circle square".

Cambria Bold:
IE 8 on Windows 7 shows "rectangle square circle".
FF 3.6 on Windows 7 shows "circle square circle".