Tallest Unicode character?

Question

Whats the unicode Character code of that f symbol? (Image by WHATWG). I suppose it's the tallest Unicode character there is. Is it?

Solution 1

The tallest Unicode character in the current standard (Unicode 6.1) is 🗻, U+1F5FB MOUNT FUJI, which is 3776 meters tall.

Solution 2

The height of a character has nothing to do with Unicode (or any of its transformations, such as UTF-8). The height of a character is defined by the font used to render it. Although obviously various fonts will adhere to convention (mostly), that doesn't mean that the tallest character in one font will necessarily be the tallest in another.

Solution 3

Maybe it's an oversized ƒ

javascript: "ƒ".charCodeAt(0) gives 402

function symbol but its apperance really depends on used font

Comments

[some]

I'm curious why you need to the tallest character.

[axkibe]

Just a large one, for testing on drawing on canvas, looking if the canvas is large enough. I don't want to segregate non-latins which often seem to be quite taller than most latin symbols (in most default fonts)

[some]

Wouldn't it be better to check the height of the actual text you want to put in the canvas? stackoverflow.com/a/7462767/36866

[axkibe]

some. That code tests the size of the 'M' and IMHO is thus an example of doing it wrong :-)

[axkibe]

Unfortunally Javscript gives us now a possibility to meassure font width, but non to meassure the height, especially regarding the baseline of the used font. You can draw text positioning Y by the baselie, but there is no reliable way to know exactly how large the bounding box is. Thats why I rely on rules of thumb. At least baseline to top of box seems to be exactly the size in pixels as the fontsize suggests. At least in the default webfonts I test with.

[some]

What if you replace the constant string in document.createTextNode("M") with a variable with the content of the text you want the height from? I haven't tested it so I have no idea if it works.

[tchrist]

That looks like the f in Zapfino. Besides being ultra-swash, and having zillions of fancy variants, everything in Zapfino is oversized for the point size selected, too. For a good time, render "Zapfino" in Zapfino while default ligatures are enabled.

[axkibe]

some, I would need the size of every possible text (its user changeable), so it would have to include all characters there is.

[axkibe]

tchrist great answer! I'll just install Zapfino on my system for testing :-)

[some]

The point I'm trying to make is that it looks like you can determinate the height of the users text at run-time with the selected font, instead of trying to solve it for every font when writing the code.

[axkibe]

some. yes, but I need to know the size of the text, before it is possibly changed.

[animuson]

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about fonts and not programming.

[axkibe]

well as you can see in the comments its about how high a canvas buffer in javascript should be allocated so it fits a font. its been answered already as not answerable. moderate away if you feel you must do.

[wei]

this one is the tallest I see so far ⎛⎝≥⏝⏝≤⎠⎞

[axkibe]

okidoky, thats logical, so whats a very tall character by convention? And whats that code of the f from WHATWG?

[T.J. Crowder]

@axkibe: Doesn't the WHATWG page on which you found that graphic tell you what entities it used?

[Álvaro González]

What do you mean with "convention"? Many Script fonts render upper-case letters several times taller than their lower-case equivalents. They're pretty tall for my taste.

[axkibe]

By convention I mean the majority of fonts. I just need a good character for testing. Using latin symbols with normal browser fonts none goes below or above the em square. I just found 𝄞 to be a good candidate that seems to use hte bounding box in its fullest in most fonts.

[T.J. Crowder]

@ÁlvaroG.Vicario: I mean the general convention of the script being rendered. E.g., a font won't render "f" as "~". Convention is required for people to be able to read it (though I've seen some fonts that were pretty darned hard to read). :-)

[axkibe]

I now use Ḕ and 𝄟 for my testing purposes. "by convention" the former goes to the very top of the bounding box and second to the bottom. Not as nice as that super-f from WHATWG, but it server my purpsoe. THank you all :-)

[tchrist]

@axkibe Try some of the Emoji.

[axkibe]

Just got the case in point. simple f in Zapfino is much larger than Ḕ (which does not exist on symbol on my apple, only on my linux). Zapfino also violates my other assumtion that baseline to top of bounding is font size in pixels, this holds true only for "normal" fonts it seems.

[aroth]

So then explain how this answer was put together. For instance, things like S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ seem to be one unicode "character", but I'll be damned if I can work out which one, or if it is actually supposed to render across multiple lines like that (it does in Chrome at least), or where I can find a list of other unicode characters that render across multiple lines of text.

[T.J. Crowder]

@aroth: That's not a single Unicode character, it's the letter S plus 10 combining characters, including several that need to go under the S. Apparently when you have multiple combining characters that have to go under, they stack up (or rather, down). I threw this together to let you decode these sorts of sequences: jsbin.com/erajer Just copy and paste whatever sequence you want, and it will show you what it's composed of, with links to the Unicode Character Properties utility for each character. Only works for characters < U+FFFF.

[phuclv]

Aren't there character code for other mountains?

[Lodewijk]

Sorry, but it doesn't make the character taller..

[tuomassalo]

If we go this route... Depending on the definition of "tall", there's at least the Sun (☀, diameter 1e9 m) and a number of constellations (U+2648 .. U+2653, ♈..♓).

[Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com]

And Unicode combining characters can be used for infinitely high stacks of characters: stackoverflow.com/questions/10414864/… ก้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้้

[tuomassalo]

How could I have missed "∞"! Anyway, thanks for ruining the layout of this comment box. :P

[Balmipour]

Won't upvote such a troll answer... but I must say it is fun !