Insert minus sign?

[TLS]

Am I blind, or is there no "insert minus sign" under Insert Special Characters --> Mathematical? This should be Unicode 2212. Yes, I can do it manually with the Unicode keyboard or the Character Palette, but I would have thought that would be an option in Mellel.

Thanks!

[verma]

Am I blind, or is there no "insert minus sign" under Insert Special Characters --> Mathematical? This should be Unicode 2212. Yes, I can do it manually with the Unicode keyboard or the Character Palette, but I would have thought that would be an option in Mellel.

Thanks!

Right, the "plus" sign (+) is also missing - I guess it's commonly done by using the normal keyboard options? I also never use the mathematical "multiplication" one, but just generally "x". I don't know if there's a "mathematical" difference or just a typographic preference. Perhaps a suggestion you can send to the Redlers?

[rpcameron]

Am I blind, or is there no "insert minus sign" under Insert Special Characters --> Mathematical? This should be Unicode 2212. Yes, I can do it manually with the Unicode keyboard or the Character Palette, but I would have thought that would be an option in Mellel.

Right, the "plus" sign (+) is also missing - I guess it's commonly done by using the normal keyboard options? I also never use the mathematical "multiplication" one, but just generally "x". I don't know if there's a "mathematical" difference or just a typographic preference. Perhaps a suggestion you can send to the Redlers?

If I recall correctly, the differences are mostly typographical. However, there are some other issues, such as baseline alignment, physical width of the character, and other such items to make them look consistent in strings of numbers. For a proper mathematical text, they ought to be used instead of the crude versions easily found on the keyboard.

[TLS]

Right, the "plus" sign (+) is also missing - I guess it's commonly done by using the normal keyboard options? I also never use the mathematical "multiplication" one, but just generally "x". I don't know if there's a "mathematical" difference or just a typographic preference. Perhaps a suggestion you can send to the Redlers?

No keyboard that I know of gives direct access to a minus sign or a multiplication sign. Hyphens and the letter "x" are not any more typographically correct for mathematics than prime signs are for quotations. They might look vaguely the same, but in fact are not once you look closer. Anyhow, thanks for confirming I am not blind at least I'll send a request in.

[Roger]

My keyboard has the number pad on the right, which includes the plus (+) and minus (-) keys. Are these keys typographically incorrect?

[bluesdance]

You know, I think one of this forum's more (shall we say) prolific members posted a brief tutorial on creating one's own keyboard layouts. You might find it helpful

But really, what's wrong with the prosaic plus sign? Why would it be on the keyboard if it can't be used to indicate addition?

[jannuss]

But really, what's wrong with the prosaic plus sign?

Yakov, the keyboard offers a limited set of characters. People in the printing industry are very serious about using the correct typographer's sign in the correct situation [like your KAMATZ KATAN]. Take a look at Mellel's Insert/Special Characters/Hypen & Dash for example.

The "minus" sign on the standard keyboard is actually a hyphen. Unicode 2212 is the size of an en-dash but thicker.

Verma, I don't find the plus sign in the Mathematical Operators unicode list. Is there another unicode plus besides the standard 002B?

Janet

[verma]

But really, what's wrong with the prosaic plus sign?

Yakov, the keyboard offers a limited set of characters. People in the printing industry are very serious about using the correct typographer's sign in the correct situation [like your KAMATZ KATAN]. Take a look at Mellel's Insert/Special Characters/Hypen & Dash for example.

The "minus" sign on the standard keyboard is actually a hyphen. Unicode 2212 is the size of an en-dash but thicker.

Verma, I don't find the plus sign in the Mathematical Operators unicode list. Is there another unicode plus besides the standard 002B?

Janet

There's FF0B but I wouldn't know what typographers and mathematicians think of that one. Also, the OO2D is indicated as "hyphen-minus" in my Character Palette so I thought it could be pretty standard as well for a minus sign. I have no experience in maths nor in typography, so I really don't know what they commonly use. Anyway, my spreadsheet prefers the keyboard form of the "minus" sign (002D, that is). But I believe that's another matter.

[jannuss]

There's FF0B but I wouldn't know what typographers and mathematicians think of that one.

The FFxx codes are for "full width" characters, so FF0B is the size of an em-dash, not an en-dash.

I'd also like to hear the mathematicians/typographers explain this to us.

Janet

[rpcameron]

There's FF0B but I wouldn't know what typographers and mathematicians think of that one.

The FFxx codes are for "full width" characters, so FF0B is the size of an em-dash, not an en-dash.

I'd also like to hear the mathematicians/typographers explain this to us.

Not quite sure I’d call myself a typographer, but I dabble a bit. The proper mathematical operators are:

• “+” (U+002B, Plus Sign),
• “−” (U+2212, Minus Sign),
• “×” (U+00D7, Multiplication Sign), and
• “÷” (U+00F7, Division Sign).

As you can tell, the minus sign is a little bit longer than a standard hyphen-minus that is normally found on the keyboard. Also, the plus sign is the only one that is able to be entered easily from the keyboard with a standard layout. The rest need to be entered separately.

Also, to help clarify Janet’s post, the “full-width” characters are usually only found in CJK typefaces, to differentiate between full-width and half-width characters. I don’t believe they are often used outside of that context.