Service Mark

[Fred Ridder]

lt34 at csus.edu asked:
> So, is the 2120 in Word an ASCII code or something? Any number (withing
> some range that I don't know) followed by Alt-x will produce a symbol. Is
> there a reference for the numbers and symbols?
 
ASCII supports a maximum of 255 characters since it is an 8-bit encoding.
Word allows you to direclty specify most supported ASCII characters by
holding Alt and typing the 3-digit ASCII character number plus a "0" prefix
using the numeric keypad. For example, holding Alt and typing 0174 on 
the numeric keypad produces a registered trademark symbol.
 
2120 is a Unicode character number. Unicode character numbers are 
hexadecimal (although you would not know it from this particular character's
number), since Unicode is a 16-bit encoding that can support up to 
65,535 (FFFF hex) different characters. This particular character number
identifies the service mark character, which is not included in many 
commonly used fonts. Word apparently has some internal logic that 
does a font substitution if you use the Alt-x #### method to enter a 
character that is not defined in the current default font. On my system, 
it appears that in most cases Word substitutes MS Gothic, which 
*does* define the service mark glyph as Unicode character 2120.
 
The most readily available "reference to the numbers and symbols" is 
the Windows Character Map tool. When you set it to display the Unicode
character set for a given font, it indicates the Unicode character number
(in the form "U+2120") when you mouse over any character. When you 
highlight a character, its Unicode number appears in the lower-left 
corner of the Character Map window. If the highlighted character is 
in the ASCII range, the lower-right corner of the window displays 
something like "Keystroke: Alt+0174" to indicate the legacy keyboard 
shortcut that uses the ASCII character number.
 
Fred Ridder
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