Fractions OpenType® fonts from Adobe®

Thank you for licensing a Fractions OpenType font from Adobe.

Fractions Usage Guide

Helvetica™ LT Std Fractions
Helvetica LT Std Fractions Bold
New Century Schoolbook™ LT Std Fractions
New Century Schoolbook LT Std Fractions Bold

The Fractions fonts include full-size numbers, pre-built fractions in two formats, and numerical characters you can use to build two formats of fractions: fractions divided by a diagonal slash ("diagonal fractions"), and fractions divided by a horizontal line ("stacked fractions").

Accessing Glyphs

This document refers to Adobe InDesign®, in which the numerical characters you use to build fractions are visible in the Insert Glyphs palette. There, glyph names are visible by pausing the mouse over a palette area until the glyph name appears.

There are alternative ways to view and select the glyphs in these (and any) OpenType fonts, depending on the application and operating system you are using. Please refer to your application or operating system documentation for more information.

Pre-built Fractions

With applications which support the OpenType fractions feature, pre-built diagonal fractions can be used by typing the desired fraction with regular numbers and the slash character (e.g. one, slash, two), with the fractions feature enabled. With applications which support the OpenType "alternative fractions" feature, any pre-built diagonal fraction can be changed to the equivalent stacked fraction.

Pre-built fractions can also be viewed and selected in the Adobe InDesign glyph palette. By clicking and holding on the pre-built diagonal fraction box, the equivalent stacked fraction will appear. The pre-built stacked fractions are also listed at the end of the entire glyph palette.

Arbitrary Fractions

With applications which support the OpenType fractions feature, an arbitrary diagonal fraction can be created by typing the desired fraction with regular numbers and the slash character (e.g. one, seven, slash, one, eight), with the fractions feature enabled.

You can also build arbitrary fractions by specifying numerators and denominators one numeral at a time from left to right: Diagonal fractions are built by entering the numerator(s), then the slash character, and then the denominator(s). The diagonal numerators are listed in the Adobe InDesign glyph palette after the pre-built fractions, and their Unicode values are E000-E009. The diagonal denominators follow the numerators; their Unicode values are E00A-E013.

Stacked fractions are also built left to right, but by choosing different formats depending on how many digits there are in the numerator and denominator.

To built stacked fractions with single-digit numerators and denominators:

  1. Select a numerator whose horizontal bar extends off to its left. The Unicode values for these numerators are E0014-E01D.
  2. Choose a denominator whose horizontal bar extends off to its right. The Unicode names for these denominators are E01E-E027.

To build fractions with vertically offset numerators and denominators, where there is an odd number of digits in the numerator and an even number of digits in the denominator (or vice versa):

  1. Select a numerator from the range of numerators whose Unicode values are E028-E031.
  2. Select a denominator from the range of denominators whose Unicode values are E032-E03B.
  3. Continue with more numerator and denominator digits as needed. Use a space after denominator digits not followed by a numerator digit.

To build fractions with vertically aligned numerators and denominators, where there is an odd or even number of digits in both numerator and denominator:

  1. Select a numerator from the range of numerators whose Unicode values are E03C-E045.
  2. Select a denominator from the range of denominators whose Unicode values are E032-E03B.
  3. Continue with more numerator and denominator digits as needed. Use a space after denominator digits not followed by a numerator digit and after numerator/denominator digit pairs.

Fraction components can also be located by using the Adobe InDesign glyph palette pulldown menu to isolate the different ranges of numerators and denominators:

Unicode Range Feature
E000-E009 numr
E00A-E013 dnom
E014-E01D ss00
E01E-E027 ss01
E028-E031 ss04
E032-E03B ss03
E03C-E045 ss02

© 2002 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Adobe and InDesign are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the U.S. and/or other countries. OpenType is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Helvetica and New Century Schoolbook are trademarks of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG exclusively licensed through Linotype Library GmbH, and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Fractions ReadMe v3.2
7 Jan 2003