In comparison, the Unicode version of this font (Arial Unicode MS) has code that can support 38,917 characters and 50,377 glyphs. This font programming system assigns a unique code to every symbol from every language, so that way the symbols are recognized when the text switches to different platforms.įor example, the commonly installed font Arial can support almost four thousand characters and the same number of glyphs with its code. Luckily computer programmers have come up with one solution: Unicode. So, if you’re using a language that isn’t based on that alphabet, what font should you use? The programming for many fonts on American products follows the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, which is based on the Latin alphabet. This occurs when characters aren’t supported by a font’s code. How are you supposed to know what font to use for what language? Have you ever inserted a translation into your document and instead of appearing as text, you have a string of blank boxes or random English characters scattered throughout the foreign text? Writing documents that use both English and other languages can certainly be tricky.

Best mac fonts for writers