[xep-support] combining diacrits

[Nikolai Grigoriev]

Hi Jack,

> I have to convert a file to pdf that contains a lot of diacrits. They
> are coded using unicode combining diacrit codes and I am using a
> times new roman unicode font. Most of the diacrits display ok,  but
> when i want to display a 't' with a dot below, the dot appears left below
> the 't', in stead of centered below the 't'. Could this be a xep rendering
error,

It is a limitation of XEP: we don't reserve any special processing for
combining
diacritics. They are treated as normal characters, and placed on the line
according to their metrics.

I really wonder how other characters manage to work if you code them
using combined diacritics. May it happen that you have a Unicode
normalization
component somewhere in the data stream? Can you please send me a sample
off list?

> can I work around it,

I am afraid there is no good workaround.You can try to specify negative
letter-spacing
on diacritic characters: but this would be a tedious work, and visual
results can hardly
be satisfactory.

> or do I just need a more up-to-date font  ?

I strongly recommend using monolithic Unicodes for accented characters, and
get
a font that has a glyph for "t width dot below". In the current state of
XEP, every
other alternative is unsafe.


Best regards,
Nikolai Grigoriev
RenderX

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