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Pedantry: correct minus symbol

Thu, 02/28/2013 - 10:52 am

Hi all,

I was wondering if there is a way of inserting the correct minus symbol in IgorPro. Specifically when formatting an axis title, going insert —> special —> character, the suitable available options are - (hyphen), – (En dash) or — (Em dash) but no minus. Copying in the symbol from word just gives a question mark and Igor doesn't support Unicode (at the moment..?). I know it's a very pedantic point but the minus should be set slightly higher than the dashes (see: http://www.punctuationmatters.com/the-difference-between-a-dash-and-a-m…) and it is quite an important symbol! I think the minus symbols on axis labels (and throughout Igor) are actually just hyphens too. I know there is the option to ModifyGraph useLongMinus=1 but again, same problem, this is an En dash not a minus.

All the best,

Tom

hrodstein

The minus symbol is not available in the MacRoman or Windows-1252 text encodings which is what Igor Pro 6 uses if you are running in English or a Western European language. So no, there is no way to get Igor Pro 6 to use a minus symbol (unless you can find a font that maps it to the code of a different character, as Symbol does with various symbols).

Igor Pro 7 will support Unicode so you will be able to use any Unicode character. However Igor Pro 7 is still a long way off - perhaps a year till a beta.

February 28, 2013 at 12:51 pm - Permalink