Mathematical notation

A target date of September 2005 has been set for the release of STIX Fonts, a free set of special mainly mathematical characters that are used in scientific, technical, and medical publishing.

The successful completion of the Scientific and Technical Information Exchange (STIX) Fonts project will alleviate the need for publishers to assemble symbols from a variety of fonts.

Perhaps more important, when posted to a web site, documents using STIX Fonts will be properly rendered, regardless of the fonts installed on a particular computer.

The six publishers that came together to design, fund and manage the STIX project include the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the American Physical Society (APS), Elsevier, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

The STIX Fonts web site http://www.stixfonts.org provides details for potential users within the scientific and publishing communities. It also offers a special area for software developers who may want to incorporate support for the STIX Fonts into their products.