Re: Why isn't there a RIGHTWARDS BLACK ARROW?

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Jukka K. Korpela <jkorpela_at_cs.tut.fi>wrote:

> 2013-10-26 18:36, Sindre Sorhus wrote:
>
> There are:
>> ⬅ LEFTWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B05)
>> ⬆ UPWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B06)
>> ⬇ DOWNWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B07)
>>
>> But no right arrow. Why is that?
>>
>
> There is
> ⬅ BLACK RIGHTWARDS ARROW (U+27A1)
> The code chart at
> http://www.unicode.org/charts/**PDF/U2B00.pdf<http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B00.pdf>
> has a cross reference to it, in the description of U+2B05.
>
> My guess is that U+27A1 was included along with other dingbat arrows
> (which are mostly rightward-pointing arrowlike symbols) because it had been
> included in legacy character codes. It was then regarded as unnecessary to
> duplicate it in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block.
>
> This is somewhat unfortunate. The code chart
> http://www.unicode.org/charts/**PDF/U2700.pdf<http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2700.pdf>
> says, in the description of U+27A1: “fonts may harmonize this glyph with
> the style for other black arrows”. In practice, however, only few fonts
> contain both U+27A1 and U+2B05, and in them, they tend to be rather
> different in style. In the fonts in my system, only DejaVu Serif, Quivira,
> and Segoe UI Symbol use the same style for both.

Thanks, that confirms my suspicion :)
That's unfortunate indeed.

Is there any way to be able to get a proper RIGHTWARDS BLACK ARROW into
Unicode?

>
>
> These arrows are the most neutral and legible ones, so it's unfortunate
>> that one is missing.
>>
>
> Well, yes, for icon-like use they would be suitable if implemented
> stylistically similarly and had shapes sufficiently resembling the
> representative glyphs. But among the three fonts I mentioned, I think only
> DejaVu Serif reflects the same design principles as the representative
> glyphs.
>
> Not surprisingly, people mostly use images instead.
>

None of the fonts I've used made it it inverse-identical of the left one.
Though doesn't help my use-case anyways as I'm using them in CLI apps where
I can neither control the font or use images.

>
> Yucca
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Sindre Sorhus
sindresorhus.com