Hello IBM Plex team,
Thank you for developing and maintaining the IBM Plex family. I use IBM Plex Sans and IBM Plex Sans Condensed in professional publishing work and particularly appreciate their clarity, extensive language support, and suitability for technical material.
I would like to ask whether you would consider expanding the mathematical Greek character coverage of IBM Plex Serif, particularly its true Italic face.
The characters of greatest immediate interest are:
ϕ — U+03D5 GREEK PHI SYMBOL
ϑ — U+03D1 GREEK THETA SYMBOL
ϵ — U+03F5 GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL
ϰ — U+03F0 GREEK KAPPA SYMBOL
ϱ — U+03F1 GREEK RHO SYMBOL
ϖ — U+03D6 GREEK PI SYMBOL
These variant forms are frequently required in scientific and technical equations, figures, tables and diagrams. For desktop-publishing applications such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW, it is important that they be available as properly drawn, directly selectable glyphs in both the Regular and Italic faces.
This would also support established scientific-typesetting conventions. Under ISO 80000 and related guidance, Greek letters that represent quantities or variables are set in italic type, whether they are lowercase or uppercase. Lowercase Greek variables are particularly common, so complete coverage in IBM Plex Serif Italic would be especially valuable. Italic uppercase Greek quantity symbols would also be useful.
I would additionally like to use these characters in MathType. MathType provides separate styles for lowercase and uppercase Greek characters, with lowercase Greek normally set in italic. Ideally, the proposed glyphs would:
use their standard Unicode code points;
be included in the true IBM Plex Serif Italic face rather than relying on synthetic slanting;
be accessible through MathType’s Lower-case Greek and Upper-case Greek styles;
work with MathType’s Greek palettes and keyboard-entry methods, where technically possible.
I understand that MathType may require its own font-encoding or character-mapping information. If MathType-specific integration falls outside the IBM Plex project’s scope, consistent Unicode mapping and conventional Regular and Italic font naming would still make support by WIRIS or other equation-software developers considerably easier.
This is not a request for a complete mathematical typesetting system or an italic version of IBM Plex Math. The principal request is for complete, properly designed mathematical Greek variant glyphs in IBM Plex Serif Regular and Italic so that the characters can be used consistently alongside the rest of the IBM Plex family.
Adding the same variant characters to IBM Plex Sans and IBM Plex Sans Condensed would also be useful, although IBM Plex Serif Italic is the primary requirement.
I appreciate that additions must fit the project’s design priorities and development schedule. Thank you for considering the request and for your continued work on the IBM Plex typeface family.
Relevant standards and documentation
ISO 80000-2:2019, Quantities and units — Part 2: Mathematics
ISO guidance on the presentation of quantity symbols and mathematical variables
NIST Special Publication 811, Chapter 10, More on Printing and Using Symbols and Numbers in Scientific and Technical Documents
MathType 7 documentation concerning Lower-case Greek, Upper-case Greek and font-style definitions
Thank you
Flavio Mini
fmini@ifm.qc.ca
Hello IBM Plex team,
Thank you for developing and maintaining the IBM Plex family. I use IBM Plex Sans and IBM Plex Sans Condensed in professional publishing work and particularly appreciate their clarity, extensive language support, and suitability for technical material.
I would like to ask whether you would consider expanding the mathematical Greek character coverage of IBM Plex Serif, particularly its true Italic face.
The characters of greatest immediate interest are:
ϕ — U+03D5 GREEK PHI SYMBOL
ϑ — U+03D1 GREEK THETA SYMBOL
ϵ — U+03F5 GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL
ϰ — U+03F0 GREEK KAPPA SYMBOL
ϱ — U+03F1 GREEK RHO SYMBOL
ϖ — U+03D6 GREEK PI SYMBOL
These variant forms are frequently required in scientific and technical equations, figures, tables and diagrams. For desktop-publishing applications such as Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW, it is important that they be available as properly drawn, directly selectable glyphs in both the Regular and Italic faces.
This would also support established scientific-typesetting conventions. Under ISO 80000 and related guidance, Greek letters that represent quantities or variables are set in italic type, whether they are lowercase or uppercase. Lowercase Greek variables are particularly common, so complete coverage in IBM Plex Serif Italic would be especially valuable. Italic uppercase Greek quantity symbols would also be useful.
I would additionally like to use these characters in MathType. MathType provides separate styles for lowercase and uppercase Greek characters, with lowercase Greek normally set in italic. Ideally, the proposed glyphs would:
use their standard Unicode code points;
be included in the true IBM Plex Serif Italic face rather than relying on synthetic slanting;
be accessible through MathType’s Lower-case Greek and Upper-case Greek styles;
work with MathType’s Greek palettes and keyboard-entry methods, where technically possible.
I understand that MathType may require its own font-encoding or character-mapping information. If MathType-specific integration falls outside the IBM Plex project’s scope, consistent Unicode mapping and conventional Regular and Italic font naming would still make support by WIRIS or other equation-software developers considerably easier.
This is not a request for a complete mathematical typesetting system or an italic version of IBM Plex Math. The principal request is for complete, properly designed mathematical Greek variant glyphs in IBM Plex Serif Regular and Italic so that the characters can be used consistently alongside the rest of the IBM Plex family.
Adding the same variant characters to IBM Plex Sans and IBM Plex Sans Condensed would also be useful, although IBM Plex Serif Italic is the primary requirement.
I appreciate that additions must fit the project’s design priorities and development schedule. Thank you for considering the request and for your continued work on the IBM Plex typeface family.
Relevant standards and documentation
ISO 80000-2:2019, Quantities and units — Part 2: Mathematics
ISO guidance on the presentation of quantity symbols and mathematical variables
NIST Special Publication 811, Chapter 10, More on Printing and Using Symbols and Numbers in Scientific and Technical Documents
MathType 7 documentation concerning Lower-case Greek, Upper-case Greek and font-style definitions
Thank you
Flavio Mini
fmini@ifm.qc.ca