{"id":49,"date":"2012-03-27T20:15:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T20:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/?p=49"},"modified":"2012-03-27T20:21:38","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T20:21:38","slug":"use-of-unicode-in-kindle-formatting-is-incomplete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Use of Unicode in Kindle Formatting Is Incomplete!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing this post has certainly clarified my own thinking.\u00a0 I hope it\u2019s helpful for other people.<\/p>\n

By now most of the people reading this post probably know about my problems with using Wingdings symbols from the Symbols drop-down menu of Word Documents.\u00a0 I used them as link signs in my Shshi conlang and also used a couple of them in
\n!Ka<t\u00e1, my Bird language.\u00a0 I picked them out in blissful ignorance solely because I liked the way they looked.\u00a0 They work fine in a Word document and they copy fine to PDF, so they will show perfectly in a printed book.\u00a0 Any of you who wants to see my languages the way I intended them to look will have to get a copy of the paperback.<\/p>\n

Putting the book in Kindle is another matter, however.\u00a0 An expert in Unicode gave me a lot of much appreciated advice, helping me discover the Character Map in Word.\u00a0 This can be found at Start\/Programs\/Accessories\/SystemsTools\/Character Map.\u00a0 All the characters listed there in the font Arial Unicode MS should show both in internet postings (as on this blog) and (I hoped) in Kindle.\u00a0 However, Wingdings aren\u2019t Unicode at all, so I decided to substitute similar characters that are Unicode, as follows:<\/p>\n

\u21b3\u00a0(U+21B3)\u00a0 \u21bb (U+21BB)\u00a0 \u21c4 (U+21C4)\u00a0 \u21c5 (U+21C5)\u00a0 \u21de\u00a0 (U+21DE)<\/p>\n

It seemed to work with blog postings (see my sample Chapter 12 on Ruminations of a Remembrancer<\/a>, where the symbols should show correctly now on all operating systems).\u00a0 So I prepared a sample post for uploading to Kindle.\u00a0 Previously I had done a sample upload using the Wingdings.\u00a0 When you do an upload, you can preview it on a mobi. format (in my case it goes to the MobiPocket Reader), and then you can move it into your Kindle.\u00a0 In my original upload, the Wingdings showed only as the corresponding alphanumeric characters.\u00a0 In the sample using the Unicode substitutions, the only character that showed was \u21b3(U+21B3).\u00a0 The others all showed as little squares with question marks in them, or in one single case, just a really tiny empty square.<\/p>\n

Awhile back I asked Kindle about the Wingdings problem and they replied by sending me a PDF copy of the \u201cKindle Publishing Guidelines.\u201d\u00a0 At the end is a list of the Unicode symbols that they accept.\u00a0 So this morning I did some comparison.\u00a0 Kindle lists the symbols sorted by the Unicode number, just as the Character Map does.\u00a0 And of the ones I wanted to use, only \u21b3 (U+21B3) is present.<\/p>\n

Just for curiosity\u2019s sake, I also tested out the Symbols drop-down menu (using Arial Unicode MS [Unicode (hex)]), as well as the Font drop-down menu (Arial Unicode MS).\u00a0 Both of these got exactly the same result \u2013 nothing showed in Kindle except \u21b3.\u00a0 But it\u2019s interesting to learn that these two methods seemed to produce Unicode characters.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t tested yet whether they would work with web postings on all operating systems.<\/p>\n

!Ka<t\u00e1 also uses two arrow symbols (\u2197\u21982197 & 2198) that don\u2019t appear in the \u201cKindle Publishing Guide,\u201d but since these don\u2019t happen to be used in \u201cThe Termite Queen,\u201d I\u2019m ignoring them for the moment.<\/p>\n

I have not tested any of this on Smashwords, but they told me they can\u2019t take \u201csymbols\u201d; they will show as question marks.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that includes Unicode.\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably test it out someday when I have time.<\/p>\n

So I would suggest that when anybody is constructing a language, if you want to publish it on Kindle, get a copy of the \u201cKindle Publishing Guidelines,\u201d be sure you\u2019re familiar with Unicode, and pick only symbols that are in the guidelines.<\/p>\n

The best alternative would be if Kindle decided to include all Unicode characters in its font.\u00a0 And I would really like to see the various Wingdings character sets given Unicode designations.<\/p>\n

So whenever I\u2019m able to publish \u201cThe Termite Queen\u201d on Kindle, I\u2019m going to use the method outlined on the 2\/18\/12 post on the termitespeaker blog entitled \u201cI Think I\u2019ve Solved the Wingdings Problem<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ll substitute superscript syllables for the link symbols and explain what I\u2019m doing in a prefatory Author\u2019s Note.\u00a0 (As for what\u2019s holding up the Kindle publication, the permission to publish Robert Graves quotations in e-book format is still up in the air, but that\u2019s off the point of this post.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing this post has certainly clarified my own thinking.\u00a0 I hope it\u2019s helpful for other people. By now most of the people reading this post probably know about my problems with using Wingdings symbols from the Symbols drop-down menu of Word Documents.\u00a0 I used them as link signs in my Shshi conlang and also used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kindle-formatting","category-unicode"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/remembrancer.conlang.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}