Currency (typography)
Encyclopedia
The currency sign is a character used to denote a currency
, when the symbol for a particular currency is unavailable. It is particularly common in place of symbols, such as that of the Colón
, which are absent from most character sets and fonts. It can be described as a circle the size of a lowercase character with four short radiating arms at 45° (NE), 135° (SE), 225°, (SW) and 315° (NW). It is slightly raised over the baseline
. It is represented in Unicode
as .
The currency sign was once a part of the Mac OS Roman
character set, but Apple changed the symbol at that code point to the euro sign
(€) in Mac OS 8.5. In non-Unicode Windows
character sets, the euro sign was introduced as a new code point. In the Unicode character set, each of the two symbols has its own unique code point across all computers.
The symbol is available on some keyboard layouts, for example French, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish keyboards, because it is used in business applications.
and Linear B
scripts, representing the number 1000.
The symbol was first encoded for computers in 1972, as a replacement for the dollar sign
in national variants (ISO 646) of ASCII
and the International Reference Variant. It was proposed by Italy to allow an alternative to encoding the dollar sign. When ISO 8859 was standardized, it was placed at 0xA4 in the Latin, Arabic and Hebrew character sets. There was not room for it in the Cyrillic set
, and it was not included in all later added Latin sets. In particular, Latin 9
replaces it with the euro sign. In Soviet computer systems (usually using some variant of KOI8-R
character set) this symbol was placed at the code point used by the dollar sign in ASCII.
More likely, this sign was intended to mark the position of the national currency symbol into the national variants of ASCII (7-bit, 95 printable characters available), where a specific national body was reluctant to accept the dollar sign
($) as a kind of "universal sign" to denote "currency" or "money". The currency sign ¤ should then be replaced by the appropriate glyph
, depending on audience (ƒ, ₤, ₧, ¥, etc.). But somehow, the neutral currency sign (¤) was to be used as a printable symbol in itself, and this usage was sufficient extended in the years of the first drafts of ISO 8859 to include it.
Using one and the same code point for different national currency symbols can be problematic in international communication. If, for example, an amount of £100 is written in an e-mail or on a website, and the software do not make sure that the same character set is used at both ends, it could be interpreted e.g. as ¥100, which is a much lower value than £100.
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
, when the symbol for a particular currency is unavailable. It is particularly common in place of symbols, such as that of the Colón
Colón (currency)
The colón is the currency of two Central American nations:*Costa Rica ; see Costa Rican colón...
, which are absent from most character sets and fonts. It can be described as a circle the size of a lowercase character with four short radiating arms at 45° (NE), 135° (SE), 225°, (SW) and 315° (NW). It is slightly raised over the baseline
Baseline (typography)
In European and West Asian typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and below which descenders extend.In the example to the right, the letter 'p' has a descender; the other letters sit on the baseline....
. It is represented in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
as .
The currency sign was once a part of the Mac OS Roman
Mac OS Roman
Mac OS Roman is a character encoding primarily used by Mac OS to represent text. It encodes 256 characters, the first 128 of which are identical to ASCII, with the remaining characters including mathematical symbols, diacritics, and additional punctuation marks. It is suitable for use to represent...
character set, but Apple changed the symbol at that code point to the euro sign
Euro sign
The euro sign is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the Eurozone in the European Union . The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. The international three-letter code for the euro is EUR...
(€) in Mac OS 8.5. In non-Unicode Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
character sets, the euro sign was introduced as a new code point. In the Unicode character set, each of the two symbols has its own unique code point across all computers.
The symbol is available on some keyboard layouts, for example French, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish keyboards, because it is used in business applications.
History
The symbol appears in the Linear ALinear A
Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B; Cretan hieroglyphs is the second script. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and religious activities, and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....
and Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
scripts, representing the number 1000.
The symbol was first encoded for computers in 1972, as a replacement for the dollar sign
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
in national variants (ISO 646) of ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
and the International Reference Variant. It was proposed by Italy to allow an alternative to encoding the dollar sign. When ISO 8859 was standardized, it was placed at 0xA4 in the Latin, Arabic and Hebrew character sets. There was not room for it in the Cyrillic set
ISO/IEC 8859-5
ISO/IEC 8859-5:1999, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 5: Latin/Cyrillic alphabet, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1988. It is informally referred to as Latin/Cyrillic...
, and it was not included in all later added Latin sets. In particular, Latin 9
ISO/IEC 8859-15
ISO/IEC 8859-15:1999, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 15: Latin alphabet No. 9, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1999. It is informally referred to as Latin-9...
replaces it with the euro sign. In Soviet computer systems (usually using some variant of KOI8-R
KOI8-R
KOI8-R is an 8-bit character encoding, designed to cover Russian, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet. It also happens to cover Bulgarian, but is not used since CP1251 is accepted. A derivative encoding is KOI8-U, which adds Ukrainian characters...
character set) this symbol was placed at the code point used by the dollar sign in ASCII.
Context dependent meaning
Even when it is appropriately used, it has an inherent ambiguous meaning; ¤12.50 can be interpreted as 12.5 units of some currency, but the currency itself is unknown, and can only be determined by information outside the use of the character in itself.More likely, this sign was intended to mark the position of the national currency symbol into the national variants of ASCII (7-bit, 95 printable characters available), where a specific national body was reluctant to accept the dollar sign
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
($) as a kind of "universal sign" to denote "currency" or "money". The currency sign ¤ should then be replaced by the appropriate glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
, depending on audience (ƒ, ₤, ₧, ¥, etc.). But somehow, the neutral currency sign (¤) was to be used as a printable symbol in itself, and this usage was sufficient extended in the years of the first drafts of ISO 8859 to include it.
Using one and the same code point for different national currency symbols can be problematic in international communication. If, for example, an amount of £100 is written in an e-mail or on a website, and the software do not make sure that the same character set is used at both ends, it could be interpreted e.g. as ¥100, which is a much lower value than £100.
Other usages
- Alternative separator in CSVComma-separated valuesA comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain-text form. As a result, such a file is easily human-readable ....
files - Delete sign when typing on paper for later OCROptical character recognitionOptical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
processing- ¤ means delete previous character
- ¤¤ means delete previous word (i.e. back to previous space character)
- ¤¤¤ : delete entire line
- In Microsoft WordMicrosoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, the currency sign is used to indicate the end of a table cell in some viewing modes. - On the Xbox 360Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, the currency sign becomes the Microsoft PointsMicrosoft PointsMicrosoft Points are the currency of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Games for Windows - Live Marketplace, Windows Live Gallery, and Zune online stores. The points allow users to purchase content without a credit card and to reduce the number of small credit card transaction fees, which Microsoft would...
symbol when entered. - In some versions of BASICBASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
(notably in Soviet versions and ABC BASICABC80The ABC 80 was a home computer engineered by the Swedish corporation Dataindustrier AB and manufactured by Luxor in Motala, Sweden in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
), the currency sign was used for string variables instead of the dollar sign. It was located on the keyboard and the character set table at the same position in many national keyboards (like Scandinavian) and eq versions of 7-bit ISO/IEC 646ISO/IEC 646ISO/IEC 646:1991, Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange, is an ISO standard that since its first edition in 1972 has specified a 7-bit character code from which several national standards are derived...
ASCII, as the dollar sign is in US-ASCII.