Degree, Feet, Inches, Minutes, Seconds
by Christoph KoeberlinThe Degree Sign
The degree sign appears most frequently in temperature and simple angle indications. Thereby applies:
Without an additional unit, the degree sign belongs to the number and is appended without a blank space.
With additional unit the degree sign becomes part of it and is separated from the number with (non-breaking) space.
The Unicode predefined characters degrees Celsius (℃) and degrees Fahrenheit (℉) are not common and are included in very few fonts.
Sub Zero
The minus sign precedes the number in any case without a space: -5° or -5 °C.
The real minus sign is adapted in position and proportion to the digits and the other mathemathical characters and cannot be reached directly from the keyboard. Alternatively, en dash may be used.
Do not confuse with:
Feet, Inches, Minutes, Seconds
The lengths feet and inches from the Anglo-American system of measurement (Imperial and US customary measurement systems) have partially found their way into the German-speaking world, where the metric system actually applies:
In geographical indications, angles are subdivided into minutes and seconds of arc and in nautical terms also into tertians. The unit is placed directly after the number and is spaced from the next number by a (non-breaking) space:
Full Circle = 360°,
1° = 60′ — one degree consists of 60 minutes of arc,
1′ = 60″ — one arc minute consists of 60 arc seconds
1″ = 60‴ — one arc second consists of 60 tertiae.
The dot character (⁗) stands for the former unit of length dot, which, however, has nothing to do with typographic dot units.
Appearance
The strokes should be slightly inclined.
Substitution
Since the real characters are rarely found in fonts, the typographically meaningless encoding characters may be used as a substitute here (and outside programming codes only here).
