XeLaTeX French guillemets non-breaking space best practice

Question

What is the best approach to get a non-breaking space just before the closing French guillemet » ?

I wish to be able to type in the natural style, which in French is « bonjour » with non-breaking spaces before » and after «. It would be great if the code were clever enough to forgive my occasional use of the English-style «bonjour» and add the forgotten space for me. Now I get this:

I am using the babel package with the [french] option. I am also using the csquotes package with the [babel] option. I have also included the xspace package in the belief/hope that it would help with the spaces. I am not committed to these packages or options, although I believe they are common. I am open to using the panglossia package, which is also quite popular to typeset foreign languages, if that would help. For this particular project, I am committed to using XeLaTeX, but the problem also exists when I compile with PDFLaTeX. I am compiling a French text with UTF-8 encoding enabled. Is there anything I am overlooking here? Do I need to redefine guillemets commands? I have seen several ways to do this, but as they did not seem to work I am leaving them out of my MWE so as not to have misleading, deprecated code around.

% !TeX TXS-program:compile = txs:///xelatex/[--shell-escape]
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[paperwidth=14cm,paperheight=20.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{libertine}% use this font and geometry width to reproduce bad break
\usepackage{ifxetex}
\ifxetex
  \usepackage{fontspec}
  \defaultfontfeatures{Ligatures={TeX}}
\else
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage{lmodern} 
\fi
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{xspace}
\usepackage[babel,french=guillemets]{csquotes}

\begin{document}

Je n'ai rien à dire --- mais je le dis bien : je suis un « beau parleur ».

Je n'ai rien à dire -- mais je le dis bien: je suis un «beau parleur».

Je n'ai rien à dire :  je suis un «  beau parleur  » .

Je n'ai rien à dire:je suis un «beau parleur» .

\end{document}

Edit I have been explicit about the requirement that I use the guillemets directly and not a shortcut like \fg or \og. This is because I co-write with someone who will be typing in a standard text processor (and I will be copy-pasting their text back and forth several times).

http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/217943/mapping-space-character-into-non-breaking-space-character?rq=1 — PatrickT, Apr 30 '16 at 18:23
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71035/wrong-spacing-around-guillemets — PatrickT, Apr 30 '16 at 18:36
The bug must have been fixed in 2019: https://github.com/reutenauer/polyglossia/issues/143#issuecomment-524016634. — Alexey, Oct 16 '21 at 11:04

Bernard · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-15T14:17:03.910

5

For babel, you have to use \frenchbsetup{og=«, fg=»}. For polyglossia, you have nothing to do, except that the package inserts a breakable space (bug?), so in case the space does break, you have to insert an unbreakable thin space by hand (\,).

% !TeX TXS-program:compile = txs:///xelatex/[--shell-escape]
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[paperwidth=14cm,paperheight=20.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{libertine}% use this font and geometry width to reproduce bad break
\usepackage{ifxetex}
\ifxetex
  \usepackage{fontspec}
  \defaultfontfeatures{Ligatures={TeX}}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{french}
\else
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\frenchbsetup{og=«, fg=»}
\fi
\usepackage[french=guillemets]{csquotes}
\usepackage{xspace}

\begin{document}

Je n'ai rien à dire -- mais je le dis bien : je suis un «\,beau parleur ».

Je n'ai rien à dire -- mais je le dis bien: je suis un «beau parleur».

Je n'ai rien à dire : je suis un « beau parleur » .

Je n'ai rien à dire: je suis un «beau parleur» .

\end{document}

edited Jun 15 '16 at 14:17

answered Apr 30 '16 at 18:55

Bernard

271,350

thanks! I was under the impression that the babel option \frenchbsetup{og=«, fg=»} required the use of \fg and \og, as I had seen it used that way on stackexchange. It's great that I can type the guillemets directly! The thin non-breaking space is not an option (for reasons I explain in an edit to my question, added later). But since I have a solution, it appears, I'm happy! – PatrickT Apr 30 '16 at 19:19
Some keyboard drivers let you enter directly a thin unbreakable space… – Bernard Apr 30 '16 at 19:29
1

I've opened an issue at the Polyglossia Git site: https://github.com/reutenauer/polyglossia/issues/143 – egreg Apr 30 '16 at 21:41
@egreg/ Thanks! I'm not very familiar with these things. – Bernard Apr 30 '16 at 21:42
@Bernard, do you mean that there is a UTF-8 compatible character that stands in for a 'thin unbreakable space'? something like the pilcrow ¶ ? I try a copy-paste of it here , from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space, is that what you mean? Thanks! – PatrickT May 01 '16 at 07:07
1

There is, and I have it on my keyboard , but it is invisible. There is a no break space, Unicode 00A0 (I've just used it between no and break) and a narrow no-break space, Unicode 202F, accessible from a BEPO keyboard for French speaking users. – Bernard May 01 '16 at 10:06
1

that is linked to an other bug in polyglossia : cf https://github.com/reutenauer/polyglossia/issues/141. Short hack to avoid it http://geekographie.maieul.net/201 – Maïeul May 01 '16 at 10:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 30 '16 at 20:28

If you want to use csquotes you should make the quotes active, and input them (also the colon) without spaces as spaces can insert unwanted break points:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[paperwidth=14cm,paperheight=20.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{libertine}% use this font and geometry width to reproduce bad break
\usepackage{ifxetex}
\ifxetex
  \usepackage{fontspec}
  \defaultfontfeatures{Ligatures={TeX}}
\else
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage{lmodern}
\fi
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{xspace}
\usepackage[babel,french=guillemets]{csquotes}
\MakeAutoQuote {«}{»}
\begin{document}

Je n'ai rien à dire --- mais je le dis bien: je suis un «beau parleur».

\end{document}

XeLaTeX French guillemets non-breaking space best practice

2 Answers2