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Why is the star in the footnote marker different with realscripts loaded?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[symbol]{footmisc}
\usepackage{ebgaramond}
\begin{document}
\null\vfill
Text.\footnote{Footnote text.}
\end{document}

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[symbol]{footmisc}
\usepackage{ebgaramond, realscripts}
\begin{document}
\null\vfill
Text.\footnote{Footnote text.}
\end{document}

enter image description here

lockstep
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Sverre
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  • realscripts means that real superior glyphs (especially designed for superscripts) are used. Without it superscripts are simply normal glyphs typeset in a smaller font size. – cgnieder Sep 18 '15 at 17:12
  • @clemens Right, I just figured that out. I'm typing up an answer right now ... – Sverre Sep 18 '15 at 17:13
  • 1
    @Sverre be aware of possible traps: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/76470/ – cgnieder Sep 18 '15 at 17:14
  • @Sverre as to the why: what else would be the purpose of the realscripts package? – cgnieder Sep 18 '15 at 17:17
  • @clemens I use realscripts for the convenient \renewcommand\footnotemarkfont{⟨font switch⟩} command, which allows me to use lining figures as footnote markers, but oldstyle figures in the text. – Sverre Sep 18 '15 at 17:18

1 Answers1

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The difference between these two stars is that the star you get without realscripts is the regular star character U+002A in a shrunk version. From the realscripts documentation:

This package will also patch the default LaTeX footnote mechanism to use \textsuperscript automatically.

If the font has an alternate glyph for a superscript star, then the superscript star will be used instead. The font EB Garamond has such a glyph, called asterisk.sups.

Sverre
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