159595 - Font face Symbol is not recognised

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 33127

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Description

[Claudio Weber Abramo]

Elements formatted with the 'Symbol' typeface ignore the formatting. Apparently,
behaviour happens with this font only. Behaviour the same in Netscape 6.2. In
other browsers (and other software in general) the behaviour is normal (thus
there is no problem with the font's installation).

Comment 1

[Claudio Weber Abramo]

In fact, when formatting via style, in the element takes the serif face formatting.

[In N6.2, but not in Mozilla, the inline formatting also renders as the serif face.]

Comment 2

[Wesha]

*** Bug 159594 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[R.K.Aa.]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 33127 ***

Comment 4

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

symbol is not used because it does not contain the characters that the web page
requests. therefore, a substitute is used. see bug 33127.

This is not a Mozilla bug.

Comment 5

[Claudio Weber Abramo]

Christian:

I've already been there and read a good deal of the discussion, which seemed to 
me Byzantine. Establishing by edict that, due to some recondite formal reason, a 
browser is correct in not depicting a sequence of characters correctly formatted 
with a font that exists in the user's system is completely unreasonable. It 
makes one wonder if those who hold such opinions do in fact use fonts, browsers 
(and word processors, layout software and whatnot) to reproduce documents for a 
public to read them with whatever viewing stuff they are atuck with. Or do you 
imagine that the average user even knows which browser happens to be installed 
in his computer?

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> a sequence of characters correctly formatted  with a font that exists in the
> user's system 

The point of the discussion in that bug is that the page is specifying _glyphs_,
not positions in the font table.  That's the way it works for every font _other_
than "symbol", so why should that one be special?  That's the short version.

Comment 7

[Claudio Weber Abramo]

>The point of the discussion in that bug is that the page is specifying 
_glyphs_, not positions in the font table.

No, I stumbled on this one by specifying a position, and not directly the glyph.

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

How did you manage that? HTML has no support for specifying positions...

Comment 9

[Claudio Weber Abramo]

I'm afraid I used wrongly the word "position" in the context. I meant addressing 
characters by their codes.

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Right.  So you asked for a particular Unicode glyph (that's what the &#xxx;
syntax in HTML does).  You then asked for it in the "symbol" font.  This font
does not provide this glyph.  This leaves us with two options:

1)  Render the glyph you asked for in some other font
2)  Completely ignore what glyph you asked for and just kinda make something up
    out of thin air.

Since option #1 is the sane one (and happens to be the one mandated by the
various specifications involved)....