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Display of Unicode combining characters

Anonymous
2022-01-13T15:10:51+00:00

Part question; part observation. Combining characters can be very useful, but they do not display well in Word. Is there a solution?

To reproduce Early Modern English / late mediaeval texts, I would want to use their standard abbreviations: for example 'w' with a small 't' above it was an abbreviation for "with", and famously a y or a þ with a small e or t above it was "the" or "that". These can be typed with combining characters, so a small 't' above is #036D to produce:

Wͭ or yͭ

However in Word most of the "t" is cut off unless you put a character in a larger font on the same line. I would not usually want to do that, and it messes the line spacing up.

I tried increasing line spacing and line height. Putting a larger character before it is the only method that seems to work.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | Windows

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Suzanne S Barnhill 277.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2022-01-14T02:27:09+00:00

Have you tried setting the paragraph spacing to an Exactly height substantially larger than the font size?

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Anonymous
2022-01-13T16:07:19+00:00

Hi AlexanderHowardAH, hope you're doing well. I’m Ian, and I’m happy to help you today.

Not all font style can display a Unicode character properly.

In this case, you can use Calibri as you font style to display the character correctly.

This is a user-to-user support forum and I am a fellow user.

I hope this helps, but please let me know if you need anything else.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-14T10:01:13+00:00

    It seems to be a font thing. The fonts themselves are adequate to do this - it is the way they interact with Word. Changing the line spacing does not affect it: the top of the raised 't' is still cut off. However, it was suggested above that I try Calibri (a font I generally shun for aesthetic reasons) and that does work.

    With most ordinary fonts, including Calibri, Arial and Times New Roman, the bottom of the combining character aligns with the top of the main letter, which means it is high up and prone to being cut off in this way, though in fact using Calibri it is not cut off. That is an issue for font designers, not MS. With Word, the solution seems to be in choice of font, or putting a larger-font character in the line.

    Actually though, having posted that I re-read your email. I had tried adjusting the line height to a multiple, but not an "Exact". When I did that, the problem was indeed solved. Thank you.

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