The Unicode Consortium Discussion Forum

"This report describes a Unicode character property which can serve as a stable default character orientation of characters for the purpose of reliable document interchange. "

At first, I understood the purpose of UTR#50 is for CSS writing modes. But it seems to me the objective has abandoned.

I can not understand the current purpose of this specification.

What is the actual meaning of document interchange? Please describe more specifically about document interchange and how- to use this UTR#50 data?

Regards,

Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.

It has not been for CSS from the first point. Unicode has been, and is, all about interchange of information. There is no single Unicode report that defines styling of documents as far as I know.

By this report defining single unambiguous orientations, higher-level protocols or applications can describe orientations as differences from this report. If you need multiple styling support, please discuss at higher-level protocols or applications such as CSS or InDesign.

Vertical writing is one of styles, then it is natural that Unicode does not define the orientation of characters.



This concept is a mistake, many western-origin characters may take upright and sideways in Japanese vertical writing. Then the single default data set will be an obstacle to the efficient interchange of orientation information.

Regards,

Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.

This report defines one set of property values for interchange, and recommend higher-level protocols to tailor to match to their preferred style. The current proposed draft states this.

The orientation of many western origin letters and symbols can take two directions, upright or sideways, depending on it's position.

As the result, one set of property values is not enough to interchange the orientation of each characters within Japanese vertical writing effectively. If we use only one set of default orientation, it will be necessary to rotate the "different from default" orientation of characters at position by position. Thousands of mark up will be necessary in some kind of book.

It needs two default sets, SVO-like and MVO-like, for the purpose of interchange of qualified vertical style information effectively.

Regards,

Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.