Kent Karlsson wrote: > >... Like it or not, superscript e *is* the > > same diacritic > > that later become "¨", so there is absolutely no violation of > > the Unicode > > standard. Of course, this only applies German. > > Font makers, please do not meddle with the authors intent > (as reflected in the text of the document!). Just as it > is inappropriate for font makers to use an ø glyph for ö > (they are "the same", just slightly different derivations > from "o^e"), it is just as inappropriate for font makers to > use a "o^e" glyph for ö (by default in a Unicode font). Though > in some sense the "same" they are still different enough for > authors to care, and it is up to the document author/editor > to decide, not the font maker.
It is certainly up to the author of the document to decide. But, as I explained more at length in my reply to Marc, the are two different approaches for deciding this: 1. When this decision is a matter of *content* (as may be the case when writing about linguistics, to differentiate spellings with "o^e" from spellings with ö), it is more appropriate to make the difference at the *encoding* level, by using the appropriate code point. 2. When this decision is only a matter of *presentation*, it is more appropriate to make the difference by using a font which uses the desired glyph for the normal "¨". > If the "umlaut" to "overscript e" transformation is put under > this feature for some fonts, I see no major reason to complain... > (As others have noted, it does not really work for the long s, > unless the language is labelled 'en'...) And, of course, in an ideal word option 2 will be done by switching a font feature, rather than switching to an ad-hoc font. This makes it possible for font designers to provide a single font which covers both needs. But this is just optimization, not compliance! _ Marco
