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by Dmitry Dvoinikov.
Original Post: Block-drawing characters in Firefox. WTF ?
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Unicode defines a family of characters shaped like boxes of increasing height. Presumably useful for drawing diagrams in text. Something like this
x xx xxx
only fancier. The exact 8 characters in discussion have code points 0x2581-0x2588, and range from 1/8th to 8/8ths, i.e. full block. Here is a sample:
▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but those characters are only useful as soon as they are aligned with each other. You can't draw a diagram if one box is slightly offset - it turns out ugly. And so, can anyone tell why Firefox 2 renders the 4/8ths (half-block, code point 0x2584) and the 8/8ths (full block, code point 0x2588) shifted down a little ? Here, have a look: