euro Currency Symbol FAQ

The euro is the name given to the single currency of the European Union. According to the European Commission, the euro will exist as a currency from 1 January 1999, but will only gradually move into general use, with the introduction of coins and notes in 2002. For more information see the Euro Web site run by the European Commission.

The form varies depending on the language. In English, 'euro' and 'cent' should not be capitalized, and the plural forms should not include an 's' in official documents.

According to the information posted on the euro Web site, about thirty draft designs were drawn up internally by the European Commission. The general public assessed ten designs, narrowing the shortlist to two. Jacques Santer, president of the European Commission, and Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the European commissioner in charge of the euro, chose the final design.

euro in Arial, Times New Roman and Courier New.

We have chosen to make instances of the euro symbol font- and style-specific. The design of the symbol takes on the characteristics of the font in which it resides.

Traditionally, numerals and currency symbols are the same width for any given font. This helps values line up properly in tabular applications like spreadsheets. To make the euro symbol the correct width for Arial and Times New Roman, it had to be condensed.

The euro character is encoded in the Unicode Standard as U+20AC EURO SIGN. To avoid confusion, the historical character U+20A0 EURO-CURRENCY SIGN has been updated with an informative note and a cross reference to U+20AC EURO SIGN. See the Unicode Consortium's Unicode Technical Report #8 for more details.

The symbol has been added to the following codepages at position '0x80': 1250 Eastern European, 1252 Western, 1253 Greek, 1254 Turkish, 1257 Baltic, 1255 Hebrew, 1256 Arabic, 1258 Vietnamese, 874 Thai. In 1251 Cyrillic, the symbol will be added at position '0x88'. Other codepages are controlled by governments or standards bodies. Microsoft is working with these organizations on the placement of the euro.

Windows 2000 has support for the euro, and includes euro-enabled fonts.

NT 4.0 euro product update
Codepage support, core fonts and keyboard drivers can be added to Windows NT 4 by installing the update posted here. The update installs the following fonts:

Windows NT Service Pack 4
These components along with improved system support and additional fonts are supplied with Service Pack 4. The service pack installs the following fonts:

An update for Windows NT 3.51 is now available for download.

Windows 98 has support for the euro and the following fonts, some of which are euro enabled:

•	Monotype's Arial TrueType font family 2.45 and 2.50
•	Monotype's Courier New TrueType font family 2.45 and 2.50
•	Monotype's Times New Roman TrueType font family 2.45 and 2.50
•	Microsoft's Tahoma TrueType font (regular and bold) version 2.26

The versions of Arial Black (2.20), Comic Sans MS (1.20), Impact (2.20), Lucida Console (0.91), and Verdana (2.10) that ship with Windows 98 do not include the euro.

Final Windows 95 product update
The beta 1 update wasn't able to add euro support to Windows 95's hardcoded codepages. It relied on a set of specially encoded core fonts. The final Windows 95 product update updates these codepages, allowing the use of any properly encoded TrueType font.

English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Iberian), Spanish and Swedish language versions (among others) can be downloaded here. The update includes keyboard drivers, codepage updates and the following fonts:

Windows 95 beta 1 euro product update
This update was replaced with the 'final Windows 95 product update' on 4 November 1998. The beta 1 update included specially encoded Windows core fonts and keyboard drivers. The update installed the following fonts:

Microsoft has posted an update that adds limited euro currency symbol support to the Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.1 and 3.11 operating systems. Your files will be automatically updated to enable enhanced display font support for the euro symbol, keyboard and printing support for the euro, as well as the ability to use the euro symbol as your default currency.

Microsoft's Mac-based applications will include euro-enabled fonts produced in accordance with Apple's technical white paper. This technical document explains Apple's symbol support.

To access the euro from your keyboard, please refer to the following chart. Windows NT 4 users should first download and run the 'NT 4.0 euro product update' or 'Windows NT Service Pack 4'. Windows 95 users should first run the 'Final Windows 95 product update'.

In addition, most keyboard manufacturers, including Microsoft, are producing keyboards that have a 'euro-key'. Here are some details provided by Microsoft's hardware group:

The Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite is designed ergonomically to provide a relaxed, comfortable typing position. And now with Windows 98, the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite supports the euro currency symbol and USB. The Split keypad is gently sloped to encourage a natural typing position. Plus an Ergonomics Guide is included and provides information on how to use the keyboard for maximum comfort, including tips on setting up a comfortable work space, helpful exercises and recommended work habits. The Microsoft Natural Keyboard with euro currency support is available in Europe.

Yes, it should work fine, providing you don't use printer resident fonts that do not include the euro. You may need to adjust your printer setup options, as using resident fonts will probably be the default setting. Look for 'print fonts as graphics' or similar settings in your printer setup options.

Printing fonts as graphics instead of using resident fonts will often result in slower printing. Check with your printer manufacturer to see if they have updated drivers or print managers that may improve performance. Newer printers may have support for the symbol built into their resident fonts.

Initially, Adobe added the euro to their Symbol font. It is encoded at position 240 of the symbol font encoding array. On 27 May 1998, Adobe released three PostScript type families that include the euro currency symbol. These are available for free download from the Adobe Web site.

Microsoft will include the symbol within all the original fonts we produce. We are working to ensure that the fonts supplied with future versions of our applications software will also include the symbol. Many independent font vendors have announced that they will be including the symbol within their new and existing fonts.

A special euro-related news and links page has been posted in our Links, news and contacts section.