Position of the registered sign

[Doug Ewell]

Christoph Päper wrote:

>> How about standardizing the position?
>
> This is basically the same argument as for the asterisk ‘*’. I think
> that this is a valid use case for a registered Variation Selector
> Sequence in both cases. 

The problem is that there is no bright line in typeface design of ® between “clearly small and superscripted” and “clearly large and not superscripted.” Variation selectors indicate a binary option: either the “normal” or traditional design, or else an alternative. Some fonts definitely show one style of ® or the other, of course, but there are many others that are somewhere in between — say, full-sized and slightly raised. Which binary option would encode that?

It’s not the same as something like U+22DA LESS-THAN EQUAL TO OR GREATER-THAN, where the “equal” line in the middle either is clearly horizontal or else clearly follows the slant of the adjacent lines, with no middle ground.

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Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org