HTML version at http://www.crpht.lu/~carrasco/winter/euro.html
IT ASPECTS OF THE EURO CURRENCY SIGN
M.T. Carrasco Benitez
The European Agency
for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
INTRODUCTION
The euro is the European Union currency that should be introduced
from the 1 January 1999. For details look at
This document discusses some of the aspects related to the euro
currency sign and IT (information technology).
UNICODE
The euro currency sign is in Unicode Version 2.0:
Unicode number Glyph Name
20A0 CE EURO-CURRENCY SIGN
The glyph "CE" (both characters are interlaced with the E lower)
is *not* the euro glyph. The euro glyph is like a "E" with two
bars in the middle. The official design is at the URL above.
Apparently there is an initiative for creating a new position in
Unicode at 20AC for the official glyph.
ASCII AND LATIN1
A position should be found for the euro currency sign in ASCII and
Latin1 (ISO 8859-1), as there will be many systems using these
encoding after the euro is introduced.
The position chosen should have some desirable characteristics:
- Little or not used.
- Minimal harms</em> if the euro or the original glyph appears.
- In the lower table (positions 0 to 127), as it is valid for both
encoding.
- Present in the qwerty keyboard.
The following position is proposed:
Unicode number Glyph Name
007C | VERTICAL LINE
If the position for the euro was in the upper table (positions 128 to
255), another position would be needed in the lower table or it would
not be available in ASCII.
HTML ENTITY
An entity should be included in HTML for the euro. It is proposed:
€
It is recommended that this entity be used in preference to the (ASCII)
code corresponding to the position that it is eventually chosen. This
allows making the intention clear that one wants the euro.
PUBLICITY
There must be publicity focused on the IT vendors on the approved euro
glyph, the position in ASCII, etc. Otherwise the computer equipment
needed
would not be available with the correct glyph: if a programmer in San
Jose
were requested to introduce the euro currency sign, he would probably
consult
the Unicode book and copy the (wrong) "CE" glyph.
INTRODUCTION OF THE EURO GLYPH
The euro currency sign should be introduced to the computer equipments
as
soon as the situation is clarified regarding Unicode and ASCII.
FEEDBACK
Please send comments to
manuel.carrasco@emea.eudra.org
DISCLAIMER
This document represent only the views of the author.
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