writing single-storey ɑ in Gnuplot graph title?

[Martin]

How can I write single-storey ɑ (The first letter in English) in Gnuplot graph title? I am always get "a" (double-story) in Gnuplot plot title?

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

It depends on selection of font.

Most font has double-storey a.
Some google investigations tell that Futura font seems to be famous for single-storey ɑ.
Mac OSX seems to have Futura font.
On windows, Century Gothic seems to be used that is similar to Futura.
You seem to be able to download free Futura from
http://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts-f4.html#Free%20Fonts

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

The below is exapmle on windows

set title 'abc' font 'Century-Gothic'
plot sin(x)

The resulted snaphot is attached (Century-Gothic.png)

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

Cross posted in stack overfolw,
and better answer is given there:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42656678/writing-single-storey-%C9%91-in-gnuplot-graph-title

[Ethan Merritt]

Your first answer was correct - it depends on the font.
The stack overflow answer is not correct - it suggests to use Greek letter alpha "ɑ" which is not the same as Romaji "a". Unicode does not specify the shape of a glyph, that is the job of the font.

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

Ethan. Thank you for explanation.

Accoding to the page
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0251/index.htm
"ɑ" (U+0251) is Latin Small Letter alpha but not Greek Small Letter alpha "α" (U+03B1).
Literally "ɑ" is not the first letter in English.
As you said, use of font that has single-storey "a" like Futura is correct way.
However, might use of "ɑ" be workaround if proper font cannot be available?

[Ethan Merritt]

In some fonts alpha may look like a, but not always. Here is a typical alpha that would look very strange if substituted for "a".