[scribus] Kerning with combining diacriticals

[John Culleton]

On Sunday 09 August 2009 07:42:01 pm John Jason Jordan wrote:
> Using 1.3.5 Rc3 on Jaunty.
>
> I do work in linguistics which requires frequent use of combining
> diacriticals. Unfortunately, the combining diacriticals are
> spaced so they are pretty well centered on letters like n or x,
> but not on a thin letter like an l or a thick letter like an m.
> To see what I am talking about. type "l n m" and after each enter
> the combining diacritic for voiceless, which is Unicode 325. If
> no diacritic appears switch to a font that has combining
> diacriticals. The voiceless character is a small circle that
> should appear centered under the letter.
>
> If you followed me so far you should see that the circle is
> centered under the n, but not under the l or the m.
>
> If I am just doing a quick and dirty term paper I don't care. But
> when I am preparing a book that I intend to sell I want
> perfection. I can kern the character using Story Editor so the
> diacritic is perfectly centered, but then the letter and its
> combining diacritic are both kerned so they appear incorrect next
> to adjacent letters.
>
> As an exercise to see what I am talking about, type "plosive" and
> put a voiceless diacritic under the l. Now kern the diacritic and
> the l so the diacritic is centered (about -8% should do it). The
> diacritic will be centered, but the l will suddenly be spaced too
> far from the p. That is because to select the diacritic you also
> have to select the l.
>
> I've tried everything I can think of, but I can't get it to work
> right. Does anyone have any suggestions?

There is a LaTeX exit in 1.3.5 that allows you to use TeX style 
commands.  Han The Thanh manages to print his name and the 
stacked Vietnam diacritical marks with TeX code like this:
{H\`an Th\^e\llap{\raise 0.5ex\hbox{\'{}}Th\`anh}

Wierd, yes, but it works after enough research and effort.
Whe all else fails  do it in TeX.
-- 
John Culleton
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