3

I am encountering an odd problem. I want to create composite characters such as ǎ using the newunicodechar package. However, it only yields a result in combination with the xeCJK package.

This code produces missing characters:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,article,oneside]{memoir}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{xunicode}

\usepackage[british]{babel}

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Minion Pro}

\usepackage{newunicodechar}
\newunicodechar{ǚ}{\v{ü}}
\newunicodechar{Ǚ}{\v{Ü}}
\newunicodechar{ǎ}{\v{a}}
\newunicodechar{Ǎ}{\v{A}}
\newunicodechar{ǒ}{\v{o}}
\newunicodechar{Ǒ}{\v{O}}


\begin{document}

ǚ Ǚ ǎ


\end{document}

If I load the xeCJK package then the characters render just fine. Why is that? And how to generate composite characters without the named package?

Note:

  • this is reproducible with other fonts that do not contain the unicode characters (e.g. Adobe Garamond Pro)
  • Minion Pro does contain a caron character (unicode 02C7, index 136)
Paul
  • 336

2 Answers2

6

The default setup doesn't use unicode U+02C7, but the combining accent U+030C which is missing in your font. xecjk contains some code to use U+02C7 instead, but seems to use this code only if xunicode is loaded too - which is a bit of a pain, as normally one shouldn't use it anymore.

You can clone the xeCJK code by using \add@accent. If more fonts are involved where some have the combining accent, some additional checks for glyph existence are probably needed. 

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,article,oneside]{memoir}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage[british]{babel}

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{MinionPro-Regular.otf}

\usepackage{newunicodechar}
\makeatletter

\newunicodechar{ǚ}{\add@accent{`^^^^02c7}{ü}}
\newunicodechar{Ǚ}{\add@accent{`^^^^02c7}{Ü}}
\newunicodechar{ǎ}{\add@accent{`^^^^02c7}{a}}
\makeatother
%\newunicodechar{Ǎ}{\v{A}}
%\newunicodechar{ǒ}{\v{o}}
%\newunicodechar{Ǒ}{\v{O}}
%
\begin{document}
abc 

ǚ Ǚ ǎ

\end{document}

enter image description here

Ulrike Fischer
  • 327,261
  • Thanks! As always you're answering my questions :) Could this be a potential feature request for newunicodechar: Substitute combining characters automatically? – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 11:06
  • No, newunicodechar doesn't care about the code you use, you could also input a picture. But you make a feature request for latex, the kernel could perhaps add a fall back to 02c7 to the definition of \v. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 25 '19 at 11:11
  • Are you sure I can just submit it to the Latex2e github? – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 11:34
3

Based on a trick by Egreg, this uses the \accent primitive. I chose to simply redefine \v.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{fontspec, newunicodechar}

\usepackage[british]{babel}

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Cardo}

\renewcommand\v[1]{\accent\string"02C7 #1}

\newunicodechar{ǚ}{\v{ü}}
\newunicodechar{Ǚ}{\v{Ü}}
\newunicodechar{ǎ}{\v{a}}
\newunicodechar{Ǎ}{\v{A}}
\newunicodechar{ǒ}{\v{o}}
\newunicodechar{Ǒ}{\v{O}}

\begin{document}

ǚ Ǚ ǎ Ǎ ǒ Ǒ

\end{document}

ǚ Ǚ ǎ Ǎ ǒ Ǒ

I picked Cardo as a common font that contains the caron accent, but not the precomposed ǚ.

Davislor
  • 44,045
  • I can reproduce the MWE of this solution with Minion Pro. However, for some reason it doesn't work in my actual main file. There is some clash with another package, and I cannot identify (yet) which one it is. – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 11:23
  • You might to change the \documentclass back, if you didn’t. I switched to standalone for the convenience of creating a cropped image. Anyway, just adding the line \renewcommand\v[1]{\accent\string"02C7 #1} ought to work. – Davislor Feb 25 '19 at 11:32
  • I already checked and your solution definitely works with \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,article,oneside]{memoir} Must be something else... – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 11:34
  • I also removed xunicode? Or maybe it’s related to \setmainfont versus \babelfont? – Davislor Feb 25 '19 at 11:42
  • I identified the conflicting package: it's hyperref But I have no idea what causes it – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 12:27
  • That package is notorious for not playing well with others. – Davislor Feb 25 '19 at 12:45
  • It worked for me in TeX Live 2018 when I loaded hyperref last. (It’s generally a good idea to load hyperref as late as possible; it’s more likely to work that way.) – Davislor Feb 25 '19 at 12:48
  • I loaded it last, using MikTex (hyperref package from Dec 2018) This doesn't work: https://pastebin.com/yWzVAQP3 – Paul Feb 25 '19 at 12:53
  • Make sure you’re up-to-date? If you still get the bug, maybe ask another question, because I can’t reproduce it by adding `\usepackage{hyperref}``. – Davislor Feb 25 '19 at 12:59