How do I get a ligature tie bar below two characters?

[Pamela Case]

I am trying to insert a ligature tie bar below two characters. The unicode
character 035C is the proper code to do so according to the unicode chart,
but when I type the 035C between the two letters, select it and type ALT x, I
get an empty box. I am using Word 2007 on Windows XP. Any way to get this
character?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Type the first letter, then press the space bar, the type 035c (using the
numeric keypad), then press Alt+x, then type the second letter.

The important thing is to have the space before the 035c, otherwise the
Alt+x attempts to convert the first letter plus the 035c and that is what is
giving you the empty box, or here, it gives me a box with a ? in it.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

I used to insert the tie simply by clicking on it in Insert Symbol,
but then I made a keyboard shortcut and don't have a problem either
way.

To use the Alt-X Unicode codes, don't select the four digits, just
type the four digits (on the regular keyboard) and then Alt-X.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Alt-X will only try to convert a sequence of five digits if the first
one is 1 (and also a range beginning with 2F and something called
"tags" beginning with E0.)

 

[Pamela Case]

When I type a 035cALT-xi using the numeric keypad, I get an a followed by a
space and an empty box.

 

[Klaus Linke]

When I type a 035cALT-xi using the numeric keypad, I get an a followed by
a
space and an empty box.

The code you're using seems to be wrong. Try the "undertie" 203F ... Does
that work?

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Klaus Linke]

035c

The code you're using seems to be wrong.

I see it's a new diacritic in Unicode Version 5, and wasn't in previous
versions.
It does not add any space (as the undertie does).

The fonts MS supplies with Office (as far as I know) are still only
supporting Unicode Version 2, back from 1996.
I haven't seen updates to fonts in 1999 (Version 3), 2003 (Version 4) or
2006 (Version 5), though I keep hoping for them every time a new version of
Office or Windows appears.

The undertie in Arial Unicode MS is very wide, too... I usually use other
fonts such as Charis SIL if I need it (say for phonetics).
If you want to have it take up no space at all (as U+035C would), you'd need
to fudge that (perhaps with character spacing or ADVANCE fields).

Klaus

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

I see it's a new diacritic in Unicode Version 5, and wasn't in previous
versions.
It does not add any space (as the undertie does).

The fonts MS supplies with Office (as far as I know) are still only
supporting Unicode Version 2, back from 1996.
I haven't seen updates to fonts in 1999 (Version 3), 2003 (Version 4) or
2006 (Version 5), though I keep hoping for them every time a new version of
Office or Windows appears.

I have no problem whatsoever with this character (Vista/W2007).
Windows XP could handle only Unicode 2.0, Windows Vista can handle
Unicode 5.0. I have not yet heard whether Windows 7 handles Unicode
5.2.

The undertie in Arial Unicode MS is very wide, too... I usually use other
fonts such as Charis SIL if I need it (say for phonetics).
If you want to have it take up no space at all (as U+035C would), you'd need
to fudge that (perhaps with character spacing or ADVANCE fields).

When authors send me a ms. with Charis SIL, I have to retype every
phonetic character, as it's not Unicode-compliant. This is a sure
source of errors.

 

[Klaus Linke]

I have no problem whatsoever with this character (Vista/W2007).
Windows XP could handle only Unicode 2.0, Windows Vista can
handle Unicode 5.0.

Great... I haven't used Vista, but will be updating to Windows 7.

When authors send me a ms. with Charis SIL, I have to retype
every phonetic character, as it's not Unicode-compliant.
This is a sure source of errors.

You're probably thinking of another font. Charis SIL is a perfectly fine
Unicode font.

Klaus

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Great... I haven't used Vista, but will be updating to Windows 7.


You're probably thinking of another font. Charis SIL is a perfectly fine
Unicode font.

Then why doesn't Font Substitution substitue the correct characters
for it?

 

[Klaus Linke]

You're probably thinking of another font. Charis SIL is a
perfectly fine Unicode font.

Then why doesn't Font Substitution substitue the correct
characters for it?

You mean you don't have Charis SIL installed? Then font substitution could
possibly choose some crazy symbol font as a substitute font, and mess things
up.
If you choose a sensible substitute font, everything should be fine.
Or, since it comes for free, download Charis SIL. It looks better than fonts
with the IPA characters that came with older Office or Windows versions (...
I haven't checked Vista much, and Win7 not at all yet).

Klaus

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

You mean you don't have Charis SIL installed?

Why should I? First I used Gentium, but unfortunately they haven't
done the Phonetic Extensions yet, and their Combining Diacritics don't
properly combine with everything I need to.

So I use Times New Roman, whose phonetic characters look fine (they're
what the International Phonetic Association uses in the IPA chart, and
you can't get more official than that) and where the Combining
Diacritics work perfectly.

(I used to use Stone Phonetic on the Mac, which was a beautiful
PostScript version of phonetic characters based on StoneITC.)

Then font substitution could
possibly choose some crazy symbol font as a substitute font, and mess things
up.

No; if the characters are encoded in the "IPA Extentions" range, then
if I don't have the particular font, then Word will substitute Arial
or Tahoma or Times New Roman (I see no principle in how Word chooses
which font to use in substituting when several are available.)

If you choose a sensible substitute font, everything should be fine.
Or, since it comes for free, download Charis SIL. It looks better than fonts
with the IPA characters that came with older Office or Windows versions (....
I haven't checked Vista much, and Win7 not at all yet).

I don't know about older PC versions. Just this morning I started
setting up my new Windows 7 notebook -- I didn't think to look at the
range of fonts it includes.

 

[Tony Jollans]

No; if the characters are encoded in the "IPA Extentions" range, then

if I don't have the particular font, then Word will substitute Arial
or Tahoma or Times New Roman (I see no principle in how Word chooses
which font to use in substituting when several are available.)

Late to this thread, but ..

I agree Word's decisions about Font Substitution seem to be - what's the
polite word? - simplistic, and I don't believe they consider the characters
used in the font, just the Font itself. But you can override them as you
wish, so there shouldn't be a need for complicated editing, re-typing,
whatever.

--
Enjoy,
Tony

www.WordArticles.com

You mean you don't have Charis SIL installed?

Why should I? First I used Gentium, but unfortunately they haven't
done the Phonetic Extensions yet, and their Combining Diacritics don't
properly combine with everything I need to.

So I use Times New Roman, whose phonetic characters look fine (they're
what the International Phonetic Association uses in the IPA chart, and
you can't get more official than that) and where the Combining
Diacritics work perfectly.

(I used to use Stone Phonetic on the Mac, which was a beautiful
PostScript version of phonetic characters based on StoneITC.)

Then font substitution could
possibly choose some crazy symbol font as a substitute font, and mess
things
up.

No; if the characters are encoded in the "IPA Extentions" range, then
if I don't have the particular font, then Word will substitute Arial
or Tahoma or Times New Roman (I see no principle in how Word chooses
which font to use in substituting when several are available.)

If you choose a sensible substitute font, everything should be fine.
Or, since it comes for free, download Charis SIL. It looks better than
fonts
with the IPA characters that came with older Office or Windows versions
(...
I haven't checked Vista much, and Win7 not at all yet).

I don't know about older PC versions. Just this morning I started
setting up my new Windows 7 notebook -- I didn't think to look at the
range of fonts it includes.

 

[Yves Dhondt]

I'm not sure Word contains logic for font substitution. I believe it is the
underlying OS which is responsible for the substitution.

A Word document contains some information about each font it uses (panose1,
pitch, font-family, ...). Past experiments led me to believe that when the
font is not available, Word passes along the font-family of the missing font
to the OS which then returns the 'base' font for that family.

On Windows font fallbacks are stored somewhere in the registry and you can
actually change them. I have no idea on how Word on Mac handles this issue.

Yves

 

[Tony Jollans]

I'm not sure Word contains logic for font substitution.

Tools > Optins > Compatibility > Font Substitution

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

(In 2007 it's way down somewhere in the Word Options -- as soon as I
discovered it I put it on the QAT, so I don't need to remember where
to find it!)

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Late to this thread, but ..

I agree Word's decisions about Font Substitution seem to be - what's the
polite word? - simplistic, and I don't believe they consider the characters
used in the font, just the Font itself. But you can override them as you
wish, so there shouldn't be a need for complicated editing, re-typing,
whatever.

One thing I discovered by accident is that if you've selected a region
with more than one font (most likely, this happens when I had put a
diacritic from one old PostScript font onto a letter from a different
PostScript font, over on the Mac) and type a replacement letter (I
have keyboard shortcuts for just about every diacriticized letter I'll
ever use), Word will insert the correct character -- in SimSun. (And
SimSun isn't even my default font for Asian typography.)

 

[Tony Jollans]

Interesting. The way Word chooses fonts is (probably deliberately) not
properly documented but in the situation you describe, Word must choose a
starting point somewhere (probably the first font in the range) and if that
font is not flagged as containing the relevant glyph, Word then has to
decide what Font to use and, IMHO, it really should first consider the
default fonts in the current style (and maybe the other fonts in the
replaced range, and, maybe, substitute fonts for them if they are not
available) before falling back on some built-in default, although it rather
sounds as though it doesn't (which, sadly, does not surprise me).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

www.WordArticles.com

Late to this thread, but ..

I agree Word's decisions about Font Substitution seem to be - what's the
polite word? - simplistic, and I don't believe they consider the
characters
used in the font, just the Font itself. But you can override them as you
wish, so there shouldn't be a need for complicated editing, re-typing,
whatever.

One thing I discovered by accident is that if you've selected a region
with more than one font (most likely, this happens when I had put a
diacritic from one old PostScript font onto a letter from a different
PostScript font, over on the Mac) and type a replacement letter (I
have keyboard shortcuts for just about every diacriticized letter I'll
ever use), Word will insert the correct character -- in SimSun. (And
SimSun isn't even my default font for Asian typography.)

 

[Tony Jollans]

In 2007 it's way down somewhere in the Word Options

Most things are :-(

I'm unhappy to see that this situation hasn't improved in Word 2010.

--
Enjoy,
Tony

www.WordArticles.com

(In 2007 it's way down somewhere in the Word Options -- as soon as I
discovered it I put it on the QAT, so I don't need to remember where
to find it!)