Middle dot/interpunct in text mode with LuaLaTeX

Question

In French, the character “·” (U+00B7) is sometimes used for gender-neutral language. It works well with pdflatex and UTF-8:

% !TEX TS-program = pdflatexmk
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[francais]{babel}

\begin{document}
Bonjour à tou·te·s!
\end{document}

But if I use lualatex, polyglossia and fontspec with this code

% !TEX TS-program = lualatex
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{french}

\begin{document}
Bonjour à tou·te·s!
\end{document}

It doesn't work anymore.

How to use interpuncts with LuaLaTeX, polyglossia and fontspec?

The problem is in the font, with another e.g. Arial the spacing looks ok. So imho the best would be to patch the font and change the width of the char. — Ulrike Fischer, Mar 09 '18 at 12:35

AlexG · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-09T13:04:40.910

4

I would suggest the following:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{french}

%\catcode`\·=13 \def\cdottext{$\cdot$} \let·\cdottext
\catcode`\·=13 \def\cdottext{\ensuremath\cdot} \let·\cdottext % @Manuel; more robust

\begin{document}
Bonjour à tou·te·s!
\end{document}

It makes · active and \lets it insert a \cdot (instead of the possibly wrong glyph from the font file).

edited Mar 09 '18 at 13:04

answered Mar 09 '18 at 12:02

AlexG

54,894

It works with LuaLaTeX, polyglossia and fontspec! – Eomnden Mar 09 '18 at 12:09
But not with PdfLaTeX . Hope this doesn't matter. – AlexG Mar 09 '18 at 12:10
2

With pdfTeX you can use inputenc and \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{B7}{\ensuremath\cdot}. – Manuel Mar 09 '18 at 12:17
Thank you Manuel. This is perhaps the more elegant way. Interestingly this does not work with LuaLaTeX; undefined \DeclareUnicodeCharacter. – AlexG Mar 09 '18 at 12:19
@Eomnden : Thanks, I corrected the loaded packages. – AlexG Mar 09 '18 at 12:53

egreg · Answer 2 · 2018-03-09T12:58:50.853

The character in the Latin Modern font is wrong for the width and, perhaps, the height.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ifxetex,ifluatex}
\newif\ifunicode
\ifxetex\unicodetrue\else\ifluatex\unicodetrue\fi\fi

\ifunicode
  \usepackage{fontspec}
  \usepackage{polyglossia}
  \setmainlanguage{french}
\else
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
  \usepackage[french]{babel}
\fi

\usepackage{newunicodechar}

\ifunicode
% fix middle dot in Latin Modern
\newunicodechar{·}{\makebox[0.27em]{·}}
\fi

\begin{document}

Bonjour à tou·te·s!

\end{document}

Run with LuaLaTeX

Run with pdflatex

Lowering the dot with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX

Change \newunicodechar{·}{\makebox[0.27em]{·}} into

\newunicodechar{·}{\ensuremath{{\cdot}}}

Just for comparison, if LuaLaTeX is used with main font set to Libertinus Serif, we get, with no \newunicodechar fix,

Different fix

Another possibility is to take the middle dot from another font. If we add

\newfontfamily{\cmu}{CMU Serif}

and do

\newunicodechar{·}{{\cmu ·}}

the output is

A bit more complicated would be to adapt it also to the sans serif family.

Yeah, \cdot seems to be the best replacement, indeed. – AlexG Mar 09 '18 at 12:58 — AlexG, Mar 09 '18 at 12:58

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 26 '22 at 10:06

Here is an expl3 version of @AlexG's answer.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{french}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\char_set_catcode_active:n { `\· }
\cs_new_protected:Npn · { \ensuremath\cdot }
\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
Bonjour à tou·te·s!
\end{document}

Middle dot/interpunct in text mode with LuaLaTeX

3 Answers3

Run with LuaLaTeX

Run with pdflatex

Lowering the dot with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX

Different fix

Linked