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Where's Your Character?
Unicode Resources

Joan Wardell, 2005-10-07

Looking for Your Character
Resources for Official Unicode Character Names
Page History

Looking for Your Character

Use the following resources for finding your character in the Unicode standard.

This is part of the procedure How to Write a Conversion Mapping for your Legacy Font.

Local SIL Resources

Check with your entity or area for maps of similar or related language fonts.
Check our Mapping Files for similar TECkit maps.
Find your character in this PDF chart, which has all similar Latin and Cyrillic characters sorted together Unicode 8.0 Latin and Cyrillic characters – sorted. For non-Roman characters or newer Latin characters, the entire Unicode set can be found here: Unicode Character Properties Excel Workbook.
See if you can find a copy of the book The Unicode Standard. It is a large 1400-page volume containing all the characters defined for the Unicode Standard for a specific version. In 2005, the Unicode Consortium was working on identifying and approving characters for version 5. Version 5.1 is in beta in 2008.

Unicode Website Resources

Dare the official website at

Resources for SIL Private Use Area Characters

Check SIL Corporate PUA Assignments for the latest chart of official SIL private use area (PUA) characters. These characters have been identified as being in use in SIL projects, but not in the Unicode Standard. Some are in the process of being proposed. Many have already been approved.

Write to the SIL PUA committee for up-to-date information about the status of your PUA characters in the pipeline: . It is usually preferable to choose a Unicode character rather than a PUA character, if possible.

Resources for Official Unicode Character Names

If you already know the hexadecimal number of your Unicode character, and want to find the official name, try the following resources.

the UnicodeData worksheet of your Legacy Mapping Workbook, col. C
Unicode Names This webpage explains the Unicode naming conventions.
the Unicode site itself Unicode Charts. The standard Roman ABCs are under the heading "Latin".
Page History
2008-02-27 JW: Reviewed
2005-10-07 JW: Page created