[XeTeX] XeTeX and diacritics

[Ross Moore]

Hello Daniel,

On 25/03/2008, at 3:25 AM, Daniel Stender wrote:

> Jonathan Kew wrote:
>
>> I'm guessing this is a macro problem at some level, rather than
>> anything specifically related to fonts. In order to figure out what's
>> wrong, I think we'd need to see a minimal sample file that
>> demonstrates the issue.
>
> Right guess ..... it is:
>
> <cut>
>
> \newcommand{\z}[1]{\textit{({\footnotesize #1})}}
> \newcommand{\ue}[1]{{\footnotesize #1}}
>
> \begin{document}
>
> \ue{Es gibt überhaupt nichts zu sagen ohne Vorheriges \z{apūrva- 
> matra-}, und ich habe auch kein besonderes Geschick im Schreiben \z 
> {saṃgranthana-kauśala-}. Gerade deshalb bin ich nicht der  
> Überzeugung, es könnte den Übrigen zu etwas Nütze sein. Es ist  
> von mir gemacht worden nur um meinen eigenen Geist zu  
> beweihräuchern.}
>
> </cut>
>
> I've changed it into:
>
> \newcommand{\z}[1]{\textit{({\tiny #1})}}
> \newcommand{\ue}[1]{{\footnotesize #1}}
>
> and now it works.

It is very strange that this change makes the difference.
There must be more going on --- such as, one of your packages
making a change to how \footnotesize works.

Would you post a complete example which includes the full
LaTeX preamble that you are using, and any non-standard class
or package files.


> Thanks!
>
> Daniel Stender


By the way, that  junicode  font looks nice.
It's documentation has some advice that I don't know whether
it is standard or not.
e.g.

Characters with diacritics.
Both Unicode and MUFI contain large numbers
of characters with diacritics. Make it a habit never to use these  
“precomposed”
characters directly; rather use the “plain” character followed by
a character from the Unicode “Combining Diacritics” range. (This  
works
with Word for Windows when Uniscribe is enabled, and also with other
OpenType-aware applications.) In almost all cases the application  
will either
substitute the correct precomposed character or position the diacritic
correctly.


Presumably this is based upon an expectation that the combining
characters are likely to work more often, rather than expecting
a font to have all the precomposed ones available.
Yet JK's remark concerning Gentium contradicts this.

Furthermore, I setup  xunicode.sty  to use precomposed characters
when there is a Unicode code-point allocated, with combining
sequences as a fallback --- especially with the standard accents
(i.e, those that occur in the older latin-based font encodings).

So my question is:
  Is there really any advantage in following the above advice?

Another question is:
  Does it matter what is done at the input or macro levels?
  Does XeTeX produce the same output in the PDF whether a precomposed
  character or combining sequence is used, when there is a choice?


Cheers,

	Ross

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                       ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                           office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                             tel: +61 (0)2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia  2109                          fax: +61 (0)2 9850 8114
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