How to Add a Delta Character ?

[Marshall_Brooks]

This should be simple, but it doesn't seem to be ...

I needed to add a O-Slash and a Delta Character in my FrameMaker Document.

I found https://www.daube.ch/docu/fm-documentation/FM/fm08-Character_Sets.pdf and Ctrl-Q/ works great for the O-Slash.

For the Delta, it says I should be able to use the left Alt Key and 0394 on the numpad, but that gives me a capital S with a triangle above it. Or I should be able to do it with Alt 2206, but that gives me "Pts". Or - https://www.ascii-code.com/ISO-8859-7/196 - Says I should be able to do it with Alt-196, but that gives me a long dash. Alt-0196 gives me a Capital A.

I was able to get it by clicking (FM 15), Insert>Equations (brings up the equations palette), selecting New Small Equation from the drop-down, clicking in the box, clicking the Delta Symbol, enlarging the font to be close (12-pt seems to match 10-pnt), and selecting shrink-wrap Equation from the drop-down.

It works, but I would prefer having something closer to basic text, without a graphic frame around it.

Thanks in advance!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What about a D in a Greek font? 

[Marshall_Brooks]

Didn't work, but I'm not sure I have a greek font or the ability to install one. The text is Arial 10. I have Arial Greek, but the D in it just displays as D.

Found somewhat of a workaround here - 

Somewhere between the two - Wingdings3 r - works similar to what I want, but visually it is just an equilateral triangle. Equations editor gives me a true delta character (triangle with shadow), which is what I want, but it has to be in a graphic box.

Thank your for the suggestion.

[Marshall_Brooks · Accepted solution]

Found it!!! There is a font called Symbol - not sure if it is native to FM or not. Capital D in that is Delta !!!!

[Bob_Niland]

Marshall_Brooks: Found it!!! There is a font called Symbol - not sure if it is native to FM or not. Capital D in that is Delta !!!!

Don't do it that way. It will not flow reliably to all outputs (esp. HTML). That method relies on the final display/print client being able to perform a codepage font glyph substitution. Instead, use native Unicode:
Δ U+0394 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER DELTA
or
∆ U+2206 INCREMENT

depending on the context. Most fonts populate one or the other.

This is \u0394 or \u2206 markup in FM dialogs. I don't immediately know the Windows shortcuts for these.

While an overlay Symbol font is a long-standing (pre Unicode) feature of FM, using markup:
\x44 Delta, with font Symbol applied
is at some risk of rendering as D, down the road.

…unless you are on FM7.2 or earlier, which had no Unicode support.

[Marshall_Brooks]

How would I use Unicode?  Alt 0394 is what I tried initially and gave me "S with a triangle above" and Alt 2206 gave me a "Pts". ???

I'm not worried about .HTML currently, as long as it exports to PDF properly, but ...

[Bob_Niland · Accepted solution]

MB: How would I use Unicode?

This is my protocol for all non-keyboard characters: [Unicode] Character Variables in Framemaker

re: Alt 0394 is what I tried initially and gave me "S with a triangle above" 

Apart from the unhelpful fact that Unicode U+ codepoints are normally hexadecimal, and Windows Alt+ codes are normally decimal, Alt codes don't necessarily map to codepoints. And in this case, if you search on it, you are apt to get advice that creates a:
▲ U+25B2 BLACK UP-POINTING TRIANGLE
re: …as long as it exports to PDF properly…
Yep, but only if no one will ever try to copy it back out of the PDF, for they will get "D" if they do.

[Bob_Niland]

Meanwhile, back at the subject line, you also wanted a zero-slash.

If this needs to be a semantic digit zero, you need a font that represents a "0" that way. How to differentiate 0 from O tends to be font-specific, with most opting for narrow, some center-dot, and a few slashed.
If the semantics don't matter, consider:
∅ U+2205 EMPTY SET

[Marshall_Brooks]

Bob,

Thank you. Your idea works fine.

Unicode also solves a minor glitch that I ran into with the Symbol font. To make the symbol font match Arial 10 point, I had to make the symbol 12 pt, which gave me an extra 2 points of space between that paragraph line and the following line. Barely perceptible, but annoying. Unicode doesn't do this.

I didn't really want to add another variable to my document, although it doesn't hurt anything and actually has some advantages.

I tried to add it without adding a variable using this method https://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/2019/using/using-framemaker-2019/user-guide/frm_text_tx-mult... - and ran into two issues:

• First, although that page is for FM2019, and I am using FM2019, the menus are not under File>Utilities. They are under Insert>Character.
• Second, whether I selected Hex Input or Character Palette, the pop-up display for two or three seconds and closed by itself, so I was never able to select anything.

To tidy up loose ends. We rarely copy from PDF into FM, but it could happen. Good to avoid it converting back to a "D" which might not be noticed.

I didn't ask about a zero-slash, I asked about an Oh-Slash, but good to know what I really want. I actually thought I wanted a Greek Phi, but the actual character is an O-Slash, so the keyboard shortcut works fine for that.

Also - I ended up using U2206. U0394 is basically an equilateral triangle. U2206 has the center to right leg of the triangle "shadowed".

[Bob_Niland]

MB: …Character Palette, the pop-up display for two or three seconds and closed by itself…

That was reported, fixed, but may be broken again. Oddly, CP also covers the Unicode SMP range (above U+FFFF), which has yet to be supported in FM. In any case, I find the freebie BabelMap applet to be much more convenient and comprehensive than either FM CP or Windows CMap … Cmap often shows things that aren't really there.

re: I didn't ask about a zero-slash, I asked about an Oh-Slash…
Ah, that might be 

Ø U+00D8 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH STROKE
but there are a number of other candidates, depending on slash direction or semantics desired, such as
⌀ U+2300 DIAMETER SIGN

[Marshall_Brooks]

Visually, I'm not seeing any difference between U+00D8 and CTRL-Q/.

I decided to use the Unicode for the reasons you mentioned in the linked thread - i.e. it's easier than trying to remember the code sequence, and it will be contained in the file so if someone deletes it, I don't have to tell them to open the latest template and copy the info back into the file.

Thank you again!

[Bob_Niland]

MB: We rarely copy from PDF into FM,…

Perhaps the more likely risk is some document consumer copying out into email or another document.

Where you wrote:
"This mission requires more Δ𝑣 than the last."
doing that with the legacy Symbol overlay hack would result in it getting pasted as:
"This mission requires more Dn than the last."

[Marshall_Brooks]

Yes - that could VERY easily happen and given our usage it would be even MORE confusing than the example you posted. Thank you again!!!