Canonical Rules

Canonical rules describe the order in which characters are sorted. You can view the current canonical rules by clicking Tools>Canonical Rules. The canonical rules table shows:

• PreComposed Form: The Unicode value (UTF-16) of the character
• Glyph: What the precomposed form of the character looks like
• Decomposed Form: The Unicode values (UTF-16) of the parts of the character, such as the base letter and diacritical marks
• Glyph: What the decomposed form of the character looks like

The following is an example of entries in the canonical rules table:

PreComposed Form	Glyph	Decomposed Form	Glyph
\u00e1	á	\u0061\u0301	a + ´
\u00e0	à	\u0061\u300	a + `

During a sort, á would come before à under these rules.

Searching for a Character in the Canonical Rules Table

You can search for a character in the canonical rules table.

1. Click Search. The Table Search dialog box will appear.
2. Enter the Unicode value (UTF-16) of the precomposed form of the character in the Table Search dialog box.
3. Click Go.

The row will be highlighted in the canonical rules table.

Changes in the Canonical Rules Table

You cannot modify the canonical rules table directly. However, if you make changes in the non-spacing characters tree, it will change the information in the canonical rules table. To view the changes in the canonical rules table, click Tools>Canonical Rules. This rebuilds the table.