The long, medial or descending s (Å¿)

[richard]

I need to insert into my document the old-fashioned letter "s" that
resembles an italicized "f" without the crossbar of the "f." I am using
Word 2007 and wonder how I can replicate that letter. [The long "s" was
used at the beginning and middle of words, as seen in the Bill of
Rights, for example]

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The long and short of it is that you will have to find a font that contains
this character. Googling for "long s font," I find
http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fonts/dd/uc_jslancient.htm (free; see
also http://shipbrook.com/jeff/typograf.html) and a discussion of fonts that
include it at http://typophile.com/node/38009. You can also check out the
other links in that search, but if you want an antique look, I think Jeff's
JSL Ancient font looks pretty promising (includes an italic variant).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Yves Dhondt]

I'm guessing you mean unicode symbol 017F. In Word type 017F (select it) and
press ALT+X. In Word 2007, Arial, Calibri, Comic, Courier and many other
fonts contain this symbol.

Yves

 

[richard]

I'm guessing you mean unicode symbol 017F. In Word type 017F (select it)
and press ALT+X. In Word 2007, Arial, Calibri, Comic, Courier and many
other fonts contain this symbol.

Yves

I need to insert into my document the old-fashioned letter "s" that
resembles an italicized "f" without the crossbar of the "f." I am
using Word 2007 and wonder how I can replicate that letter. [The long
"s" was used at the beginning and middle of words, as seen in the Bill
of Rights, for example]

Thanks

I installed Jeff's fonts but the "s's" were not descending.
Yves, thank you for your suggestion--it worked and solved my problem.
How in the world did you know that?!
Richard

 

[Yves Dhondt]

Glad it helped.

If you know the name of the symbol, a Google search of the name in
combination with the keyword "unicode" will often provide you with some
links to the actual code for the symbol.

If you don't have the name of the symbol (which is commonly the case for
questions in this group), it comes down to trying to figure out to which
subsection of the unicode charts it belongs, and then checking them page by
page.

Yves

I'm guessing you mean unicode symbol 017F. In Word type 017F (select it)
and press ALT+X. In Word 2007, Arial, Calibri, Comic, Courier and many
other fonts contain this symbol.

Yves

I need to insert into my document the old-fashioned letter "s" that
resembles an italicized "f" without the crossbar of the "f." I am
using Word 2007 and wonder how I can replicate that letter. [The long
"s" was used at the beginning and middle of words, as seen in the Bill
of Rights, for example]

Thanks

I installed Jeff's fonts but the "s's" were not descending.
Yves, thank you for your suggestion--it worked and solved my problem. How
in the world did you know that?!
Richard

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, they are not descending, but they are the type used in printed matter of
the period. And they are not descending in any of the fonts Yves mentioned,
either. I did miss that this character is also available in Times New Roman
(didn't spot it in the Symbol dialog because it *isn't* descending).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

I'm guessing you mean unicode symbol 017F. In Word type 017F (select it)
and press ALT+X. In Word 2007, Arial, Calibri, Comic, Courier and many
other fonts contain this symbol.

Yves

I need to insert into my document the old-fashioned letter "s" that
resembles an italicized "f" without the crossbar of the "f." I am
using Word 2007 and wonder how I can replicate that letter. [The long
"s" was used at the beginning and middle of words, as seen in the Bill
of Rights, for example]

Thanks

I installed Jeff's fonts but the "s's" were not descending.
Yves, thank you for your suggestion--it worked and solved my problem. How
in the world did you know that?!
Richard