Standard Stitch Chart Symbols?

http://knitting.about.com/od/reviews/gr/chartmagic.htm

 
At a recent Knit Night we were talking about the many advantages of working from charts as opposed to text. You can read more about the why here. Someone in our group mentioned looking for charts with standard symbols. I'm not sure what standard symbols are. There are so many software packages out there for creating charts. Publishers do use one type for consistency within their publications but around the world there are many more. 

If you google, knit charting software, you will see a large number of systems here. I can think of a few more that didn't even make the first page. 

There are free systems as well, here is a link about one.

I use the right leaning forward oblique (slash)  for k2tog and the opposite direction left leaning oblique (slash) for ssk. (I can't type them into blogger  for you to see as it rejects some symbols). One of my peers thinks that is confusing to knitters so she uses two totally different symbols for clarity. The two are also very different from one another as opposed simply reversing direction of the same symbol. Another uses a graphic arts software unrelated to the knitting industry and created her own symbol data base.


Here is a chart from http://www.tettidesign.net/2010/10/cool-current-wristwarmers-pattern.html. This is a Ravelry designer from Estonia.

The thing that is most important for the knitter to know is, there is no truly standard system of charting symbols. Always check the legend for the specific chart you are working from to ensure accuracy.

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