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1998-10-12 CEN/TC 304 N853

Title: Interim Report #2 on the Euro in IT Standardization Source: Erkki Kolehmainen, CEN/TC304 Euro Project Team leader Date: 10 Oct 1998 Status: A draft presented by Wolf Arfvidson at SOGITS meeting in October, replaces N838 Action: FYI

Interim Report #2 on the Euro in IT Standardization

This is a cumulative report. In this version, vendor-specific information is given for illustrative purposes only. The next version of this Report (which is intended to be the final one) is due by the end of December. In this version, substantial changes to the previous version are indicated by change bars (see here on the right).

1. Euro Currency Codes, Logo and Glyph

The Currency Code for the Euro for use in monetary transfers by financial institutions et al. has been registered in the three-letter form as ‘EUR’ and in the numeric form as ‘978’ with the international registration authority BSI (British Standards Institute) appointed by ISO according to standard ISO 4217. Note: This three-letter code does not follow the normal rule: the two-letter country code (‘EU’, not registerable as such although reserved) followed by the first letter in the name of the currency (which normally would be ‘E’).

The Euro sign has evolved from the initial logo to also a new character. The logo is defined as a rounded E with double line for the central horizontal bar, blue with yellow background (ref: COM(97) 418fin). The logo may be downloaded from website http://europa.eu.int/euro/ .

As a character, the shape of the Euro sign needs to adapt to the textual environment. For this purpose, the Euro glyph has been registered as ISO Glyph ID 8059 in the International Glyph Register, Volume 1: Alphabetic Scripts and Symbols with the international registration authority AFII (Association for Font Information Interchange) appointed by ISO according to standard ISO/IEC 10036.

As the shapes of the glyphs are adapted to the respective fonts' typographic properties, they are generally narrower than the logotype shape.

Proposed alternative shapes for an OCR-B Euro glyph have been developed within the Project Team and reported in a CEN/TC304 document, as discussed later.

2. Coded Character Sets

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As a character, one must be able to input the Euro sign to an IT system (using e.g. a keyboard), to process and store it, to transmit it, and to output it (to e.g. a display, printer, et al.). All these require that the sign be included in the coded character set of the IT system in question.

The support for the Euro sign as a coded character in the various environments is well on its way.

The inclusion of the Euro in the standardized multi-octet Universal Character Set (ISO/IEC 10646-1 AM 18, and UNICODE) has been finalised; the 16-bit code for the Euro is ‘20AC’. This is expected to be confirmed as an International Standard in February 1999.

The 8-bit ISO/IEC 8859-15, “Latin 9” that includes the Euro sign has been finalised; the code for the Euro is ‘A4‘. This is expected to be confirmed as an International Standard in December 1998.

In the context of “Latin-9”, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG3 also recommended (Resolution M 13.08) that the equivalent position used by the International Currency sign (ICS) be used for the assignment of the Euro sign in new graphic character set registrations or possible new standards based upon existing 8-bit standards, where the ICS is currently encoded.

The revision of the 8-bit ISO/IEC 8859-7, “Latin/Greek” that is planned to include the Euro sign, was presented in the September 1998 meeting of SC2/WG3 and is about to enter the Final Committee Draft ballot stage in ISO.

Other coded character set standards may be created or extended to include the Euro sign. For certain old standards (e.g. ISO 6937 and all 7-bit coded character sets), a decision not to extend has been made.

The Euro sign will be included in the forthcoming Multilingual European Subsets of the 10646 (MES-1 and -2, which have been initiated by a CEN TC304 Project Team but are now subject to a CEN ISSS Workshop and will have the status of CWA) and it will be covered by the European Ordering Rules, an ENV to be produced by another CEN TC304 PT.

2.1.1. De facto and non-standard solutions

There will be several industry or ‘de facto standard’ implementations (by e.g. Microsoft and IBM, for both pcs and mainframes) available shortly if not yet. These implementations, which will be described in more detail in future reports, are planned to be made available on a country-by-country basis.

In line with the above SC2/WG3 recommendation on the Euro sign vis-à-vis the International Currency sign, the Swedish IT Standardization has applied for ISO registration of three code tables with the Euro sign included in this way, corresponding to the "right halves" of the ISO/EC 8859-1, -4, and -13 (aka “Latin-1”,

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“Latin-4”, and “Latin-7 - Baltic Rim"), all of which were considered needed in Sweden. The tables were registered in September 1998, and can now be referred to as ISO-IR 204, 205, and 206, respectively. For IT applications based on the present Latin schemes but needing the Euro sign, it is therefore possible to formally specify the use of such alternatives as ISO-IR 6+204, corresponding to Latin-1, etc.

2.1.2. Markup Languages

The Euro sign can be referred to as ‘€’ in the HTML Version 4 specification.

2.1.3. Fallback

Where the Euro sign is not available by any of the above means in the applicable coded character set or its presentation, it is recommended that, if possible, i.e. when there is room for expansion, the Euro sign be replaced by the three letter currency code ‘EUR’. When there is no room for expansion, a capital ‘E’ would be the next level of fallback, unless it would create problems in its context (e.g. with the floating point notation), in which case a user specific fallback would need to be defined.

3. Input

In this report, the only input mechanism to be described presently in any detail is the keyboard. Scanning and related OCR-B and bar codes are discussed only briefly, but those sections will be expanded in future versions. Voice recognition has not been discussed at all, nor have the special needs of handicapped people.

3.1. Keyboards

The keyboards can be divided into general purpose and special purpose keyboards.

3.1.1. General Purpose Keyboards

On the keyboards, there is no international standard in existence or in process that would cover the national primary keyboard layouts in its scope. In fact, in many EMU countries, there is not an up-to-date (or even outdated) national keyboard layout standard in existence.

The EU Commission has produced a recommendation which it is likely to enforce for the procurement for the EU / EEA official business. The European subsidiarity principle is very strong and would prohibit CEC from mandating anything for the national keyboard layouts; the non-existence of any such international (worldwide or European) standard is essentially for the same reason.

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The Open Workshop on the Euro in IT Standardization held in Brussels in February decided to support the CEC "short term" recommendation (AltGr+e for most European countries), but not their initial "long term" recommendation (a special key, which the Commission has agreed to change to the intent to follow an international standard if and when such a standard becomes available). After the Euro workshop, CEN/TC304 has passed a resolution that does this also. Thus, CEN/TC304 is the only wide area standardization body that has made any recommendation for the placement of the Euro in the primary layout.

The ISO 9995-3 keyboard layout standard (for Group 2) is only intended for use when the national/local primary keyboard layout (specified by the NB or e.g. a vendor) does not include the Euro (in Group 1). Thus, no conflict between its positioning of the Euro and the recommendation exists, unless one reads more into the ISO 9995-3 than what is in its scope. To complicate the issue, Group 2 is not accessible on most keyboards, nor is there a standardized method to access Group 2 (or even Level 3 in Group 1), although some work in this area has been proposed.

In line with the recommendation, e.g. Microsoft will support keyboards with AltGr+e used for the Euro in most European countries; the notable exceptions are AltGr+4 for Ireland and the UK (following the recommendation, though), AltGr+5 for US- International and Greece (or AltGr+epsilon), and AltGr+u for Hungary and Poland; in addition, for certain countries, Microsoft will also support a second location (usually AltGr+5).

IBM and a number of other manufacturers are known to have similar (but not necessarily identical) plans to support the recommendation. Incidentally, the support does not necessarily require a new keyboard, normally a new kb driver will do.

National standardization on keyboards cannot be expected to provide timely guidance to industry on where to place the Euro on general purpose keyboards.

3.1.2. Special Purpose Keyboards

The placement of the Euro sign on special purpose keyboards (e.g. on ATMs and cash registers) is still wide open and must be addressed by the relevant industries and the related standardization bodies. In a more general field of application, CEN/TC304 has asked ETSI (or its User Group together with ANEC) to come up with a recommendation for the placement of the Euro sign on telephone keypads (particularly on mobile phones), which also has implications on their character encoding.

3.1.3. Project Team on Keyboards

It seems that the PT on Keyboard that CEN/TC304 has set up, can in fact play a significant role in the revival of keyboard standardization in Europe.

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3.2. Scanning

Scanning of textual documents relates to the subject of the ISO/IEC JTC1 Business Team on Imaging.

3.2.1. Optical Character Recognition (OCR-B)

The relevant OCR-B standard is ISO 1073/II-1976. In ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, there is a work item for a Technical Report to describe proposed extensions (among them the Euro sign) to the glyph repertoire of the standard.

In the CEN TC304 Plenary in June, the following resolution was passed:

“Resolution 2 - A new OCR-B Work Item

CEN/TC304 resolves to approve for ballot a New Work Item proposal for an EN to add to the glyph repertoire of OCR-B, as specified in ISO 1073/II-1976, the glyphs for the EURO Sign and a number of other European language characters. The glyph for the EURO sign will be normative, and the other additional glyphs will be normative or informative, depending on the extent of testing to be performed, as part of the PT on OCR-B Testing with possibly additional funding.

CEN/TC304 resolves that the work for adding the Euro Sign to the repertoire of the OCR-B standard be within the scope of the EURO PT of CEN/TC304.

CEN/TC304 instructs its secretary, with assistance from TC members to issue a Call for experts, to provide the testing of characters to be added to the OCR-B standard, funded in a contract between TC304 and CEN/EC.”

As the result, one could assume that the requirements for reliable, high speed scanning can be met for e.g. the purpose of sorting document using the Euro symbol in connection with monetary amounts. At the same time, the requirements for reliable document archive can be met, as OCR-B supports the most reliable scanning method based on current technology.

After development of alternative shapes for the OCR-B Euro glyph, a draft report was produced (CEN/TC304 N837) documenting the issue. This report was posted for possible comments also on the CEN/ISSS website. Also the creator of the original OCR-B font, the typographical designer Adrian Frutiger, was consulted in the matter.

The two alternate OCR-B glyph shapes developed will be the subject of testing in a new Project Team, in close collaboration with the Euro PT. The Call for Experts for the testing team will be issued shortly. Meanwhile, work will be proceeding within the Euro Project Team on a draft for a new OCR-B EN or ENV, based on the ISO standard 1073/II, and including the Euro sign in a tentative shape.

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3.2.2. Bar Codes

This is progressing satisfactorily. The Project Team has been in numerous contacts with the various parties responsible for the bar coding standardization, technologies and applications, and it would appear that they have the issues under control. A specific evaluation report on this has been requested from within the PT and will be made available in the future.

4. Output

The display and printer output is the only one to be discussed presently. For scannable output, many of the issues are the same as those for input. Audio output has not been discussed at all, nor have the needs of handicapped people (e.g. Braille).

4.1.1. Displays and Printers

Several font manufacturers already provide the Euro sign in their font collections. See Appendix A for an example.

The display manufacturers are not expected to face any particular problems in supporting the Euro sign, although, depending on the implementation, various levels of software are likely to be affected. On this, the industry has raised no concerns.

Many printer manufacturers are in the process of adding the fonts for the Euro sign to their downloadable fonts. In some instances, the system fonts can be used to supplement the built-in fonts; the latter will take more time to replace (and may only be extended for new printers). The mechanical printers, such as the daisy wheel printers, will require new hardware parts plus changes to the software needed to support them; the high speed band printers (which are primarily used for the back office operations at major financial institutions) are not likely to change in the near future.

5. Presentation

The presentation of amounts in Euro has several aspects to be solved.

5.1.1. National Preferences

Each country has currently their own preferred convention to display amounts in their national currency. This national individualism is expected to extend to the display of amounts in Euro. Several countries, however, do not have conventions that can be readily carried over, as e.g. the magnitudes of the unit values can be significantly different.

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The question of national preferences is being addressed by the CEN/TC304 Project Team on Populating the Cultural Registry. A summary report on the presentation of monetary values, particularly in Euros, will be made available by the end of October on the TC304 website at http://www.stri.is/tc304 .

5.1.2. European Default

In spite of the cultural differences that lead to the individual national preferences, a common way to display amounts in Euro is required for conducting the official business of EU, EEA, CEN, and related organizations, in order to provide for identical, unambigious understanding in these multicultural European environments. The same is required for many unrelated multinational applications, e.g. for the commercials on the satellite channels.

The CEN/ISSS Workshop on European Default Locale is addressing this issue.

5.1.3. Dual Rendering

As the current locale structure in many IT systems (notably POSIX) does not allow for multiple, different occurrences for the locales dealing with the presentation of monetary values, the need for the IT vendors to give the users the right default values for the concurrent display of amounts in their traditional currency and the Euros, will require some quick solutions. Individual contributions have been made primarily to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG20, some for automatic dual rendering and some for dual rendering under application control, of which the latter seems to be the favoured approach.

6. Interoperability

In connection to the introduction of the Euro sign into IT systems, a number of interoperability issues need to be addressed. Many of these are related to tagging (of e.g. data base content, transactions, and e-mail) or the lack thereof. This Project Team has felt that we owe it to the vendors and users alike to address these issues, which we feel are manageable once they are properly understood. (An example of a problem situation is when the system would tag a transaction as using a new coded character set, which set is not (yet) supported/recognized by the target data base system.)

A specific elaboration report on this has been requested from within the PT and will be made available in the future.

Other aspects will be addressed as they arise. The Project Team would welcome any and all comments and other contributions to its work.

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Erkki I. Kolehmainen

Project Team Leader for the Coordination of the Euro in IT Standardization

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Appendix A

The Euro Glyph in Vendor Fonts; An Example

The Euro glyph has been added to a large number of vendor fonts, e.g. to Microsoft "Windows" in its latest versions ‘98 and NT. It also exists as a freely downloadable upgrade for Windows 95 (which has been used to create this text), but not for the previous 3.x versions. (The upgrade contains not only fonts, but also drivers for keyboard input of the Euro sign, according to the solution decided on by Microsoft).

In the following, the Euro symbol is presented using a number of different fonts (with two spaces between the bold and italic options applied for each):

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Times New Roman Helvetica Arial Courier

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