Bullet (typography)
In typography, a bullet ( • ) is a typographical symbol or glyph used to introduce items in a list. For example:
- Item 1
- Item 2
- Item 3
It is likely that the name originated from the resemblance of the traditional circular bullet symbol (•) to an actual bullet.
The bullet symbol may take any of a variety of shapes, such as circular, square, diamond, arrow, etc., and typical word processors, such as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org Writer offer a wide selection of shapes and colours. Several regular symbols are conventionally used in ASCII-only text or another environments where bullet characters are not available, such as * (asterisk), - (hyphen), . (period), and even o (lowercase O). Of course, when writing by hand, bullets may be drawn in any style.
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[edit] Usage
Bullets are most often used in technical writing, reference works, notes and presentations.
Example:
Where are bullets most often used?
- Technical Writing
- Reference Works
- Notes
- Presentations
[edit] Bullet points
Bulleted items – known as "bullet points" – may be short phrases, single sentences, or of paragraph length. Bulleted items are not usually terminated with a full stop if they are not complete sentences, although it is a common practice to terminate every item except the last one with a semicolon, and terminate the last item with a full stop. It is correct to terminate a bullet point with a full stop if the text within that item consists of more than one sentence.
[edit] Computer encoding and keyboard entry
The standard circular bullet symbol (•) is at Unicode code point U+2022. As an HTML entity, it may be entered as •, •, or • Unicode also defines a U+2023 ‣ triangular bullet, a U+25E6 ◦ white bullet, a U+2043 ⁃ hyphen bullet, as well as a U+2219 ∙ bullet operator for use in mathematical notation primarily as a dot product instead of interpunct. However, semantics normally requires that bulleted items be achieved with the appropriate use of the <li> tag inside an unordered list (<ul>). Such lists may be denoted with leading asterisks in Wikipedia markup as well as in many other wikis.[1]
In the Windows-1252 and several other Windows code pages, the standard circular bullet character is at 149 (decimal). To input this this [[Alt codes|Alt code] in Windows, press and hold Alt+0149 on the numeric keypad). The bullet symbol is also generated by Alt+7 in GUI applications, but Alt+7 in a Windows text interface (such as a Win32 console application) generates the U+0007 <control-0007>, which are confused with bullet symbol in code page 437 and other OEM code pages (see #In historical systems section).
On Mac OS X, pressing Option+8 inserts a bullet, and pressing Shift+Option+9 inserts the similar interpunct (·).
GTK+ applications on Linux support the ISO 14755-conformant hex Unicode input system; hold Control and Shift while tapping U, then type 2022 and press Enter to insert a • or hold Control and Shift while tapping U, then type B7 and press ↵ Enter to insert a midpoint.
[edit] In historical systems
Glyphs "•", "◦" and their reversed variants "◘", "◙" became available in text mode since early IBM PCs with MDA–CGA–EGA graphic adapters, because built-in screen fonts contained such forms at code points 7–10. These were not true characters though, because such points belong to C0 control codes range and, therefore, these glyphs required a special way to be placed on the screen; see code page 437 for discussion.
Prior to the widespread use of word processors, bullets were often denoted either by a lower-case “o” filed-in with ink or by asterisks (*), and several word processors, such as Microsoft Word, automatically convert asterisks to bullets if used at the start of line. This notation was inherited by wiki engines.
[edit] References
- Clair, Kate (1999, Digitized 2007-12-20 by University of Michigan Libraries). A Typographic Workbook: A Primer to History, Techniques, and Artistry. Wiley, 1999. p. [page needed]. ISBN 0471292370, ISBN 9780471292371. http://books.google.com/books?id=1WFUAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2008-11-12.
- Boulton, Mark (2005-04-18). "Five simple steps to better typography - Part 2: Hanging punctuation". Journal. Mark Boulton, typography designer. http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/five-simple-steps-to-better-typography-part-2. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
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