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Angstrom Symbol Nonsense [message #8037]

Thu, 30 January 1997 00:00

davidf
Messages: 2866
Registered: September 1996

Senior Member

Folks,

As if I don't have problems enough on this newsgroup, now I
am getting a slew of mail about angstrom symbols. Typical
of the mail I am getting is this one from Dr. Watson (or
someone like him, I can't remember):

> Ok, if nobody else is going to do it, then I will: what the hell
> are you doing here? (ang = '<string-of-greek>') Please enlighten
> me.

It's elementary, my dear Watson. What I wrote was this:

ang = '!6!sA!r!u!9 %!6!n'

Take out your Geek to English dictionary. You can find it
in Chapter 9 of the IDL User's Guide. This sentence is easily
parsed:

!6 -- Complex Roman font, of course, what else could it be?
!s -- According to the dictionary it's "save position". This
means, well, it means... Well, skip this for now.
A -- Capital A, splendid, Watson!
!r -- "restore position". You see, you didn't need to worry about !s.
!u -- Shift to upper subscript. We're going to write something
above the A.
!9 -- special symbol font. We need a tiny circle.
% -- This is how you draw a tiny circle, Watson. Pay attention!
!6 -- Well, what did it mean *before* Watson!
!n -- Back to normal text level (from subscripting).

As I say, Watson, elementary!

Holmes

P.S. Thanks to Andy Nichols at the Naval Research Lab
for supplying this hieroglyphic in a post some time ago.

Also, does anybody know how to produce an angstrom
symbol in a reliable way with hardware fonts? How
about in PostScript? Inquiring minds want to know! :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
2642 Bradbury Court, Fort Collins, CO 80521
Phone: 970-221-0438 Fax: 970-221-4762
E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com
-----------------------------------------------------------

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[Message index]

		Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: davidf on Thu, 30 January 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: rosentha on Wed, 05 February 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: D.Kennedy on Wed, 05 February 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: davidf on Wed, 05 February 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: Struan Gray on Wed, 05 February 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: pit on Mon, 03 February 1997 00:00
		Re: Angstrom Symbol Nonsense By: steinhh on Thu, 06 February 1997 00:00

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