Editing Unicode (section)

=== Fonts ===
{{Main|Unicode font}}

Unicode is not in principle concerned with fonts ''per se'', seeing them as implementation choices.<ref>{{Cite journal
 | last1         = Bigelow
 | first1        = Charles
 | last2         = Holmes
 | first2        = Kris
 | date          = September 1993
 | title         = The design of a Unicode font
 | url           = http://cajun.cs.nott.ac.uk/wiley/journals/epobetan/pdf/volume6/issue3/bigelow.pdf
 | journal       = Electronic Publishing
 | ISSN          = 0894-3982
 | volume        = 6
 | issue         = 3
 | page          = 292
 | access-date   = 2025-04-12
 | archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20250216000657/http://cajun.cs.nott.ac.uk/wiley/journals/epobetan/pdf/volume6/issue3/bigelow.pdf
 | archive-date  = 2025-02-16
 | url-status    = live
}}</ref> Any given character may have many [[allograph]]s, from the more common bold, italic and base letterforms to complex decorative styles. A font is "Unicode compliant" if the glyphs in the font can be accessed using code points defined in ''The Unicode Standard''.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title         = FAQs: Fonts and keyboards: ''Fonts and Unicode''
 | url           = https://www.unicode.org/faq/font_keyboard.html
 | date          = 
 | access-date   = 2025-04-12
 | publisher     = [[Unicode Consortium]]
 | archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20250306103512/https://www.unicode.org/faq/font_keyboard.html
 | archive-date  = 2025-03-06
 | url-status    = live
}}</ref> The standard does not specify a minimum number of characters that must be included in the font; some fonts have quite a small repertoire.

Free and retail [[font]]s based on Unicode are widely available, since [[TrueType]] and [[OpenType]] support Unicode (and [[Web Open Font Format]] (WOFF and [[WOFF2]]) is based on those). These font formats map Unicode code points to glyphs, but OpenType and TrueType font files are restricted to 65,535 glyphs. Collection files provide a "gap mode" mechanism for overcoming this limit in a single font file. (Each font within the collection still has the 65,535 limit, however.) A TrueType Collection file would typically have a file extension of ".ttc".

[[List of typefaces|Thousands of fonts]] exist on the market, but fewer than a dozen fonts—sometimes described as "pan-Unicode" fonts—attempt to support the majority of Unicode's character repertoire. Instead, Unicode-based [[List of Unicode fonts|fonts]] typically focus on supporting only basic ASCII and particular scripts or sets of characters or symbols. Several reasons justify this approach: applications and documents rarely need to render characters from more than one or two writing systems; fonts tend to demand resources in computing environments; and operating systems and applications show increasing intelligence in regard to obtaining glyph information from separate font files as needed, i.e., [[font substitution]]. Furthermore, designing a consistent set of rendering instructions for tens of thousands of glyphs constitutes a monumental task; such a venture passes the point of [[diminishing returns]] for most typefaces.