[texhax] Tironian Sign Et

[Chris Yocum]

Dear Mr. Lück,
     Thank you very much for the suggestion.  I think you are correct
that the italic does look more like the symbol in question.
     In order to get something that is that symbol, I have taken a
look at Metafont and its facilities.  I found Metafont to be
fascinating (finally a use for all that math I took) but I am worried
about how to integrate a bitmap font (especially just one symbol) into
a PS T1 or TTF document, which I believe mine is currently
(essentially in one or the other outline font).  The process of
getting a bitmap font to an outline font (like T1 or TTF) seems
cumbersome at best and could be impossible on my windows machine right
now.
     I am not sure at this point in time if my PhD will allow me to
continue my research into Metafont but at some point, I would like to
take a crack at recreating the font found in Dinneen's Irish-English
Dictionary (it is very close to what is actually in the manuscripts).
     Anyway, thank you again.

Sincerely,
Chris Yocum

On 2/13/06, Uwe Lück <uwe.lueck at web.de> wrote:
> In the meantime, I had the related problem with "etc.".
> Our workaround is $\varphi$, displaying the loop that
> is typical for the shorthands in the manuscript.
> Your workaround appears fine to me, yet I would
> recommend \textit{7}, so it becomes more obvious
> that it is not the digit, moreover \textit{7} even has
> a closer graphical appearence. [continued ...]
>
> At 12:33 27.09.05, Chris Yocum wrote:
> >Hi All,
> >      I am not an expert on fonts so I am hoping someone can help me
> >here.  There is a symbol in Old, Middle, and Classical Gaelic which is
> >called the Tironian Sign Et.  It looks like this:
> >http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/204a/index.htm.
> ...
> >      For now, my workaround is using the number 7, which kind of looks
> >like it so I am sure that I can get away with using that if no other
> >solution is avaliable.
>
> At 15:01 27.09.05, Karl Berry wrote:
>
> >     but you'll still need to find a font which has this symbol which
> >     can be used from one of these.
> >
> >Yes, that's the important point ...
>
> Anyway, even finding the font may not suffice,
> additionally it would be needed that the design
> of that Tironian Et harmonizes with the font
> you use for the rest of the transcription
> (that's why I put Peter Wilson, who currently
> makes ancient fonts, into the Cc:).
> E.g., (that's why I write!) I found that the former
> "oldgerm" fonts, now "yfonts", offers an "etc."
> symbol -- yet we don't transcribe the manuscript
> in fraktur, we do it in roman, so that "etc." symbol
> doesn't help much.
>
> Regards,
>    Uwe.
>
>