Comments on: Combining Unicode Characters

Question: Combining Unicode Characters

AArtaud — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 01:45:19 -0800

Unicode Filter - How do I go about combining diacritics in Unicode with pre-existing letters? I'm baffled. Win XP, using Word. I'm clueless, and I'm working with a deader than the proverbial doornail language (Hint - Middle Eastern Iranian language family).

By: Alt F4

Alt F4 — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 04:53:58 -0800

I'm not sure how you'd do this using Word, since I don't think Word allows much kerning control. But ... in InDesign (or another typesetting tool), you can place the diacritic immediately after the letter it works with, and then reduce the kerning on the letter enough so the diacritic is centered above it (or below it, or whatever).

You could try this for Word ... If you don't need the document to change with later edits, you could place the diacritic in an object box and position it manually. In effect, you'd be creating a second layer of text. That's not very elegant, but it could work.

By: k8t

k8t — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:00:37 -0800

This may sound odd, but I'm working at a Help Desk at a university with a lot of dead languages. And to do what you're trying to do, we've found Open Office to work a lot better.

Who knows why!

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:10:15 -0800

I'm confoozed. Doesn't the input method depend on the IME you're using?

By: librarina

librarina — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:16:46 -0800

Are you sure a specific font doesn't exist for that language? The Yamada Center at the University of Oregon has a whole bunch of language-specific fonts. I made great use of their IPA font, but haven't tested their others.

By: AArtaud

AArtaud — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 23:12:06 -0800

Well, I doubt that there is a specific font for Khotanese, except for Apples, and it would be handmade by my ex-advisor.
I have to go back and re-check what characters I need exactly. I need something fairly elegant and use-friendly because I need to be able to search the extant textual corpus, but that's for the suggestions. Open Office sounds like a nice alternative.