[scribus] Kerning with combining diacriticals

[Pierre Marchand]

Vous (John Jason Jordan) avez écrit :
> Using 1.3.5 Rc3 on Jaunty.
>
> I do work in linguistics which requires frequent use of combining
> diacriticals. Unfortunately, the combining diacriticals are spaced so
> they are pretty well centered on letters like n or x, but not on a thin
> letter like an l or a thick letter like an m. To see what I am talking
> about. type "l n m" and after each enter the combining diacritic for
> voiceless, which is Unicode 325. If no diacritic appears switch to a
> font that has combining diacriticals. The voiceless character is a
> small circle that should appear centered under the letter.
>
> If you followed me so far you should see that the circle is centered
> under the n, but not under the l or the m.
>
> If I am just doing a quick and dirty term paper I don't care. But when
> I am preparing a book that I intend to sell I want perfection. I can
> kern the character using Story Editor so the diacritic is perfectly
> centered, but then the letter and its combining diacritic are both
> kerned so they appear incorrect next to adjacent letters.
>
> As an exercise to see what I am talking about, type "plosive" and put a
> voiceless diacritic under the l. Now kern the diacritic and the l so
> the diacritic is centered (about -8% should do it). The diacritic will
> be centered, but the l will suddenly be spaced too far from the p. That
> is because to select the diacritic you also have to select the l.
>
> I've tried everything I can think of, but I can't get it to work right.
> Does anyone have any suggestions?

Composite  glyphs are well composed by means of mark to mark (mkmk) 
positioning feature, which Scribus does not support atm. Your best chance is 
to get a font having all glyphs you need accessible through the regular 
Unicode cmap.

hth

-- 
Pierre Marchand