Recommended Glyphs

In addition to script and language specific punctuation and native numbers, the following glyphs are highly recommended for inclusion in fonts.

TrueType outline fonts should have the following four glyphs at the beginning of a font. These were listed in Apple's original TrueType specification. These glyphs are recommended to allow for the same version of the font to work on both Windows and Macintosh.

Glyph 2 is the nonmarkingreturn glyph; it has no contours and positive advance width.

Glyph 3 is the space (and no-break space) glyph; it has no contours and positive advance width.

*) For the Macintosh platform, all unmapped characters are mapped to the first glyph.

The .notdef glyph is very important for providing the user feedback that a glyph is not found in the font. This glyph should not be left without an outline as the user will only see what looks like a space if a glyph is missing and not be aware of the active font's limitation.

It is recommended that the shape of the .notdef glyph be either an empty rectangle, a rectangle with a question mark inside of it, or a rectangle with an "X". Creative shapes, like swirls or other symbols, may not be recognized by users as indicating that a glyph is missing from the font and is not being displayed at that location.

PostScript Name	Descriptive Name	Sample	Unicode	MacChar
space	space		$0020	$20
exclam	exclamation mark	!	$0021	$21
quotedbl	quotation mark	"	$0022	$22
numbersign	number sign	#	$0023	$23
dollar	dollar sign	$	$0024	$24
percent	percentsign	%	$0025	$25
ampersand	ampersand	&	$0026	$26
quotesingle	apostrophe	'	$0027	$27
parenleft	left parenthesis	(	$0028	$28
parenright	right parenthesis	)	$0029	$29
asterisk	asterisk	*	$002A	$2A
plus	plus sign	+	$002B	$2B
comma	comma	,	$002C	$2C
hyphen	hyphen-minus	-	$002D	$2D
period	period	.	$002E	$2E
slash	slash	/	$002F	$2F
zero	digit zero	0	$0030	$30
one	digit one	1	$0031	$31
two	digit two	2	$0032	$32
three	digit three	3	$0033	$33
four	digit four	4	$0034	$34
five	digit five	5	$0035	$35
six	digit six	6	$0036	$36
seven	digit seven	7	$0037	$37
eight	digit eight	8	$0038	$38
nine	digit nine	9	$0039	$39
colon	colon	:	$003A	$3A
semicolon	semicolon	;	$003B	$3B
less	less-than sign	<	$003C	$3C

Smart quotes (also known as curly quotes) are fancy characters which make text look better compared to the straight apostrophe (') and straight quote or inches character ("). Microsoft Word also automatically changes 3 periods to an ellipsis.

If your font does not support these characters, you can either turn the "Smart Quotes" and "Ellipsis" features off in the application (In Microsoft Word it's under Tools -> AutoCorrect) or make sure these glyphs and their mappings are available in the font.

PostScript Name	Descriptive Name	Sample	Unicode	MacChar
quoteleft	left single quotation mark	'	$2018	$D4
quoteright	right single quotation mark	'	$2019	$D5
quotedblleft	left double quotation mark	"	$201C	$D2
quotedblright	right double quotation mark	"	$201D	$D3
ellipsis	horizontal ellipsis	…	$2026	$C9

PostScript Name	Descriptive Name	Sample	Unicode	MacChar
nbspace *	no-break space		$00A0	$CA
currency	currency sign	¤	$00A4
section	section sign	§	$00A7	$A4
logicalnot	not sign	¬	$00AC	$C2
degree	degree sign	°	$00B0	$A1
paragraph	paragraph sign	¶	$00B6	$A6
periodcentered	middle dot	•	$00B7
endash	en dash	–	$2013	$D0
emdash	em dash	—	$2014	$D1
bullet	bullet	•	$2022	$A5
euro	euro currency symbol	€	$20AC	$DB
bulletoperator **	bullet operator	•	$2219	$E1