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Danield
Danield

Reputation: 125521

ie8 doesn't recognize ⋅

I'm trying to use the html entity ⋅

All browsers recognize this , but then I noticed that ie8 (and below?) - instead of displaying the dot - displays a empty box.

So i'd like to know:

1) Is there something that i'm missing or is this an IE bug?

2) Are there other entities that IE doesn't support?

3) IS there a workaround?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 991

Answers (3)

Jukka K. Korpela
Jukka K. Korpela

Reputation: 201628

IE (all versions currently in use) recognizes the entity reference ⋅, as denoting DOT OPERATOR (U+22C5) “⋅”. If you test with the equivalent character reference ⋅ or the character itself (in an UTF-8 encoded document), you get the same result. The reason is that this is a font problem.

The dot operator is included in a few fonts only. Apparently, the font being used for your text is none of them. Older versions of IE are often unable to pick up a character from some alternative font, whereas, when needed, IE 9 scans through the fonts in the system until it finds the character.

The only font containing dot operator that you can expect to find in old Windows versions (which is where old versions of IE are mostly used) is Lucida Sans Unicode. It is not suitable for math texts, but what can you do? But you can get good rendering in better systems by first listing more suitable fonts. E.g.,

body { font-family: Cambria, Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Sans Unicode, serif; }

If, on the other hand, you are not using the dot operator in its intended meaning, as a mathematical operator, you are probably using it as a bullet-like separator. Then consider using the U+2022 BULLET “•” character (•).

Upvotes: 4

Chadwick13
Chadwick13

Reputation: 357

I have found that testing this with a doctype it works with in IE7,8 and 9. I have checked it in IE with Compatibility view and also in IE tester http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

i have found :

Browser compatibility notes

The symbols above display correctly in Internet Explorer 4.01 and later with three exceptions: ∅. ∉, and ⋅ do not work in IE until version 7. Otherwise all symbols work in a wide variety of browsers.

a quote from "http://www.johndcook.com/math_symbols.html"

Try the as an alternative ·

Upvotes: 0

scessor
scessor

Reputation: 16115

You need a (microsoft) font which includes this character, otherwise you see this empty box. Alternatively, you can also use the character · (unicode: ·) which is very similar to ⋅.

Upvotes: 1

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