Euro

:For other uses, see {{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation) or EUR (disambiguation).

The euro sign

The international three-letter code (according to ISO standard ISO 4217) for the euro is EUR. A special euro currency sign (€) was also designed. After a public survey had narrowed the original ten proposals down to just two, it was then up to the European Commission to choose the final design. The eventual winner was a design created by a team of four experts. The symbol is (according to the European Commission) "a combination of the Greek epsilon, as a sign of the weight of European civilisation; an E for Europe; and the parallel lines crossing through standing for the stability of the euro." This is disputed by Arthur Eisenmenger, a former chief graphic designer for the EEC, who claims to have created it as a generic symbol of Europe.

Related Topics:
ISO - ISO 4217 - Arthur Eisenmenger - EEC

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The euro is represented in the Unicode character set with the character name EURO SIGN and the code position U+20AC (decimal 8364) as well as in updated versions{{fn|1}} of the traditional Latin character set encodings. In HTML "€" can also be used. The HTML masking was only introduced with HTML 4.0; shortly after the introduction of the euro, many browsers were unable to render it.

Related Topics:
Unicode - Character set - HTML

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The European Commission originally specified the euro sign to have exact proportions, not varying from font to font. By this specification, the euro sign would have effectively been a logo, unlike designable characters such as the letters or other currency signs like the dollar and pound signs. Keeping it to exact measurements would have made it rather broad in comparison to other symbols and digits in most fonts and would sometimes have resulted in layout problems. For these reasons, most type designers have ignored the commission and designed their own variants for each font instead, often based upon the capital letter C in the respective font. The illustration at the top of this article is of the official, invariant euro sign.

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Typing the euro sign on a computer depends on the operating system and national conventions. See Keyboarding the euro sign for details. Some mobile phone companies did an interim software update on their special SMS character set, replacing the rarely used symbol for the Japanese yen with the euro sign: modern phones have both currency signs.

Related Topics:
Operating system - Keyboarding the euro sign - SMS - Yen

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No "official" recommendation is made with regard to the use of a cent sign, and sums are often expressed as decimals of the euro (for example €0.05 rather than 5¢ or 5c). The small letter c is often used (as it was for the guilder's subdivision, the cent). In Ireland, the small letter c is often seen (for instance on postage stamps) but in shops the cent sign (¢) makes an appearance from time to time. In Greece, the capital letter lambda (Λ) is widely used, as an abbreviation for lepta (Λεπτά) and indeed the latter is written on the national side of the Greek-issue coins. In Germany, the abbreviation "ct" is widely used for "cent". In Finland, usually the decimal method is shown -,82 €, however sometimes you see the "snt" abbreviation from the Finnish "sentti", e.g. 50 snt.

Related Topics:
Cent sign - Guilder - ''lepta''

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Placement of the symbol is also an example of diversity. While the official recommendation is to place it before the number, people in many countries have kept the placement of their former currencies. This is the case in Spain and France, where people are reluctant to change to a system they find somewhat illogical (writing the currency before, "€2", but reading it after, as in "deux/dos euros"). In France, therefore, € 3,50 is often written as 3€50 instead, following the conventional style for the franc: (example 22F96).

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