Use of '⌘' character

Using the "used fonts" extension, I found a few things, including use of "Wingdings" of all things! Searching for that, I found it used in "Note for Mac users", which is present in every document and comes from the template.

It turns out that the "Command Key" symbol is typed using the 'z' character and changed to Wingdings font. My understanding is that this font is including (only) on Microsoft Windows. So, the Mac users whom this is aimed at will see a 'z' instead, or perhaps something goofy as it gets substituted with some random symbol font. Is it actually visible on people's Mac's?

The character '⌘' encoded as U+2318. I see that it is not present in the Liberation fonts used by the main text, but it shows up anyway in the document. I presume this is some kind of font fall-back ability. So, at least using the standard Unicode character will show up even if the needed font is absent! And what font to use?

Linux Biolinum Kb has it, but in a "key cap" outline. That may be OK for this specific usage, though it doesn't match the other key-typing explanations. I also note it is in some of the DejaVu fonts, which appear to have been used in previous versions of the OOo documents, and Symbola, available at <http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/> and "free for any use".

I think we should change this in the Template and throughout. Thoughts?

Hi :slight_smile:

In linux a lot of those "Windows only" fonts are in a package called something
like "mstcorefonts". I have webdings in linux :slight_smile:

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi:

My Mac running libreoffice has wingdings , wingdings2,and wingdings 3 & yet more than I had on my old machine with Windows XP.

z or should I say ⌘ works OK in every thing I have seen and opened from the webpage.

I see no issues with using the windings2 "z" as the symbol is done with my version

Regards
Ian.

That character shows correctly on my Mac.

Jean

Hi, :slight_smile:

I just added my 2 cents about key names in general in the thread John
started about templates. I'd circumvent the possible problems with
using specific fonts and special characters by using <Cmd>. If people
don't like the convention of enclosing key names in <> then I'd just
use Cmd with the appropriate style applied.

David Nelson

Some Mac users may not know what key Cmd refers to. My four year old MacBook only has the Apple symbol () and the (⌘) symbol on the command key. My two year old external keyboard an current Macs have the (⌘) symbol and (Command) on the command key. I would suggest using both (⌘) symbol and (Command) in the documentation.

Larry