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The European Commission specified a euro logo with exact proportions and colours ([[Pantone Matching System|PMS]] Yellow foreground, PMS Reflex Blue background<ref name="ec.europa.eu"/>), for use in public-relations material related to the euro introduction. While the Commission intended the logo to be a prescribed [[glyph]] shape, font designers made it clear that they intended to design their own variants instead.<ref>[http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/eurotypo.html Typographers discuss the euro], from December 1996.</ref>
The European Commission specified a euro logo with exact proportions and colours ([[Pantone Matching System|PMS]] Yellow foreground, PMS Reflex Blue background<ref name="ec.europa.eu"/>), for use in public-relations material related to the euro introduction. While the Commission intended the logo to be a prescribed [[glyph]] shape, font designers made it clear that they intended to design their own variants instead.<ref>[http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/eurotypo.html Typographers discuss the euro], from December 1996.</ref>


Comedy
==Use on computers==
Generating the euro sign using a computer depends on the [[operating system]] and national conventions. Some mobile phone companies issued an interim software update for their special [[Short message service|SMS]] character set, replacing the less-frequent Japanese [[yen sign]] with the euro sign. Later mobile phones have both currency signs.


History
The euro is represented in the [[Unicode]] [[character set]] with the character name EURO SIGN and the code position U+20AC (decimal 8364) as well as in updated versions of the traditional Latin character set encodings.<ref>For details please see the [[Western Latin character sets (computing)]]</ref><ref>For Eastern European character set Latin 10 with the euro sign, please see [[ISO/IEC 8859-16]]</ref> In [[HTML]], the <tt>&amp;euro;</tt> entity can also be used. The HTML entity was only introduced with HTML 4.0, shortly after the introduction of the euro, and many browsers were unable to render it. The alternative was to use <tt>&amp;#128;</tt> instead, with 128 (80 [[hexadecimal]]) being the code position of the euro sign in most [[Code page#Windows (ANSI) code pages|Windows 125x encodings]].


Tragedy
[[File:Moreeurosigns.png|thumb|left|The euro sign in a selection of [[font]]s.]]


Poetry
An implicit character encoding, along with the fact that the code position of the euro sign is different in common encoding schemes, led to many problems displaying the euro sign in computer applications. While displaying the euro sign is no problem as long as only one system is used (provided an up-to-date [[Typeface|font]] with the proper [[glyph]] is available), mixed setups often produced errors. One example is a [[Content management system]] where articles are stored in a database using a different character set than the editor's computer. Another is [[Legacy system|legacy software]] which could only handle older encodings such as [[ISO/IEC 8859-1|ISO 8859-1]] that contained no euro sign at all. In such situations, character set conversions had to be made, often introducing conversion errors such as a question mark (?) being displayed instead of a euro sign.


All's Well That Ends Well
Care has been taken to avoid replacing an existing obsolete currency sign with the euro sign. That could create different currency signs for sender and receiver in e-mails or web sites, with confusions about business agreements as a result.
As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors
Depending on [[keyboard layout]], the symbol can be entered as either [[AltGr]]+E, AltGr+4 or AltGr+5.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.onnet.es/eurokey.pdf | title = Recommendation for the placement of the Euro sign on computer keyboards and similar information processing equipment | date = 28 November 1997 | publisher=[[European Commission]] | archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20060720134243/http://onnet.es/eurokey.pdf | archivedate = 20 July 2006 | format = [[PDF]]}}</ref> On the [[Mac OS]] operating system, a variety of key combinations are used depending on the [[keyboard layout]] (for example, [[option key|option]]-2 in British layout, option-[[shift key|shift]]-2 in United States layout).<ref>[http://support.apple.com/kb/TA26547 Mac OS: How to type the Euro glyph], ''Apple Technical Report'' TA26547 (11 September 2003).</ref> The [[Compose key]] sequence for the euro sign is '''<tt>=E</tt>'''.
Cymbeline
Love's Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus The Sonnets
A Lover's Complaint
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
Funeral Elegy by W.S.


==Usage==
==Usage==

Revision as of 16:17, 26 August 2011

The euro sign; logotype and handwritten.

The euro sign (€) is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the Eurozone in the European Union (EU). The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. The international three-letter code (according to ISO standard ISO 4217) for the euro is EUR. In Unicode the code point is U+20AC EURO SIGN (&euro;).

Design

Official graphic construction of the euro logo.

The euro currency sign was designed to be similar in structure to the old sign for the European currency unit, ₠. After a public survey had narrowed the original ten proposals down to two, it was up to the European Commission to choose the final design. The eventual winner was a design created by a team of four experts whose identities have not been revealed. It is assumed that Alain Billiet was the winner and thus the designer of the euro sign.[citation needed]

Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є)[note 1] – a reference to the cradle of European civilization – and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to ‘certify’ the stability of the euro.

The official story of the design history of the euro sign is disputed by Arthur Eisenmenger, a former chief graphic designer for the European Economic Community, who claims he had the idea prior to the European Commission.[2]

The European Commission specified a euro logo with exact proportions and colours (PMS Yellow foreground, PMS Reflex Blue background[1]), for use in public-relations material related to the euro introduction. While the Commission intended the logo to be a prescribed glyph shape, font designers made it clear that they intended to design their own variants instead.[3]

Comedy

History

Tragedy

Poetry

All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline Love's Labours Lost Measure for Measure The Merry Wives of Windsor The Merchant of Venice A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen of Verona Winter's Tale Henry IV, part 1 Henry IV, part 2 Henry V Henry VI, part 1 Henry VI, part 2 Henry VI, part 3 Henry VIII King John Richard II Richard III Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus The Sonnets A Lover's Complaint The Rape of Lucrece Venus and Adonis Funeral Elegy by W.S.

Usage

A euro light sculpture at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

Placement of the sign also varies. Partly since there are no official standards on placement,[4] countries have generated varying conventions or sustained those of their former currencies. For example, in Ireland and the Netherlands where previous currency signs (£ and ƒ, respectively) were placed before the figure, the euro sign is universally placed in the same position.[5] In many other countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, an amount such as €3.50 is often written as 3,50 € or 3€50 instead, largely in accordance with conventions for previous currencies and the way amounts are read aloud.

In English-language use, like the dollar sign ($) and the pound sign (£), the euro sign is generally placed before the figure,[6] as used by publications such as the Financial Times and The Economist.[7]

No official recommendation is made with regard to the use of a cent sign, and usage differs between and within member states. Sums are often expressed as decimals of the euro (for example €0.05 or €–.05 rather than 5c). The most common abbreviation is "c", but the cent sign "¢" also appears. Other abbreviations include "ct" (particularly in Germany), "cent." in Spain, "snt" (Finland) and Λ (the capital letter lambda for λεπτό, "lepto", in Greece).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In the quotation, the epsilon is actually represented with the Cyrillic capital letter Ukrainian ye (Є, U+0404) instead of the technically more appropriate Greek lunate epsilon symbol (ϵ, U+03F5).

References

  1. ^ a b "European Commission – Economic and Financial Affairs – How to use the euro name and symbol". Ec.europa.eu. Retrieved 7 April 2010. {{cite web}}: no-break space character in |title= at position 20 (help)
  2. ^ Connolly, Kate (23 December 2001). "Observer | Inventor who coined euro sign fights for recognition". London: Observer.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
  3. ^ Typographers discuss the euro, from December 1996.
  4. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". Delidn.ec.europa.eu. Retrieved 21 August 2009.
  5. ^ Euro: valutateken voor of achter het bedrag?, Nederlandse Taalunie. Retrieved 21 December 2006.
  6. ^ Article on linguistics: Currency units, TranslationDirectory.com. Retrieved 25 June 2008.
  7. ^ Economist.com Research Tools: Style Guide, TranslationDirectory.com. Retrieved 15 July 2008.

External links