Combining dot diacritical mark does not work for all letters

There is a related problem. Some keyboard layouts allow two methods for producing a character with a diacritical mark : 1) first type the dead key combination assigned to the mark, then type the base character; or 2) first type the base character, then type the key combination assigned to the mark. The two key combinations are not identical. The second method seems to be more general, allowing any mark or sequence of marks to be applied to any base character, but not all fonts properly render the compound shape.

Example: Using the "US-Extended" keyboard, you can get “ḍ” by 1) typing RightALT-x followed by “d”; or by 2) typing “d” followed by SHIFT-RightALT-x. You can similarly type Ḍ, ṭ, ṃ, ḥ in both ways. This keyboard includes diacritical marks for quite a few languages written or transliterated using the Latin script.

The problem I've noticed is this: MS Word accepts without complaint the words containing the accents produced by the first method, but flags with spelling error any words containing the accents produced by the second method. Since some other text editors, including Libre Office and Google mail, accept without complaint the accents typed by either method, could the Word behavior be a bug?

HansV

Thanks for your prompt feedback. The problem remains that while a keyboard shortcut works for certain letters

these four: d, t, m, h do not work with a combining dot below initiated by keyboard shortcut. These are the four most commonly used in Sanskrit. As I mentioned, if I manually insert a combining dot below for these letters it does work, but that is very tedious.

jeyboard shortcut at work:

 ạ ẹ ị ọ ụ

 The same action with d t m h results in nothing happening, unless I do it manually: Ḍ ṭ ṃ ḥ

I am beginning to wonder if perhaps office just doesn't support these letters - but then why would it work when I select from INSERT-SYMBOLS?

While I have been able to create a macro that I bind to my G keys, it is still somehow dissatisfying.

Thanks

Alt+X looks for a hexadecimal number before the insertion point. D0323 is a valid hexadecimal number, hence the problem. A, B, C, E and F would behave the same. R followed by 0323 Alt+X should work, however - I tried it successfully just now. The following has been copied from Word:

Ṛ

You can assign a custom keyboard shortcut:

Select the "combining dot below" in the Symbol dialog.

Click "Shortcut Key...".

Press the desired key combination while in the "Press new shortcut key" box, for example Ctrl+Alt+B.

Click Assign, then click Close, and Close again.

You can now type a D, then press the custom keyboard shortcut.

HansV,

I did some troubleshooting of my own. Tested the same situation on my notebook, and it worked as it should with all letters. Went back to the word program giving me trouble and resest it to default settings. Bingo! problem solved.

Thanks for your help. On an unrelated question. Is it possible to set word to autosave certain documents at different times? Some of my research notes are in excess of 800 pages and autosaving  becomes very slow. I need to have multiple word docs open each with their customized auto-save time, so for example Doc A autosaves every 5 mins while Doc B every 40 mins. Is this possible?

I'm sorry, I cannot explain that. On my PC, I can combine the dot below with any character using the keyboard shortcut, including d, h, m and t.