[XeTeX] combining characters in isolation

[David Perry]

Mike Maxwell wrote:
>>
>> {\fontspec{Arial Unicode MS} \char"09C2  xx \char"09C4}
>>
>> {\fontspec{Arial Unicode MS} \char"00A0\char"09C2  xx 
>> \char"00A0\char"09C4}
> 
> Apparently this is font-specific, because that doesn't work with the 
> "Bangla" font we're using.  Apparently the font doesn't have that 
> character, nor does the Lohit Bengail or Rupali font--I get rectangular 
> boxes.  Unfortunately, we don't have Arial Unicode on our Linux machine.

If a font is truly Unicode-compliant, then it should contain the 
characters I used to test (or the ones you need).  Are you sure about 
those fonts--could they be using some older system?

I just downloaded a font called bangla.ttf from 
http://www.omicronlab.com/bangla-fonts.html (lots of free/open source 
Bengali fonts there; not sure if this is the Bangla that you have).  I 
looked at the font in FontLab Studio and it does have all the Unicode 
characters, and the following lines were successful:

{\fontspec{Bangla} \char"09C2  \qquad +/=  \qquad  \char"09C4}

{\fontspec{Bangla} \char"00A0\char"09C2 \qquad  +/= \qquad 
\char"00A0\char"09C4}

(again, I threw in the quads and the extra characters just to keep the 
combining marks well apart from each other to avoid any possible 
interaction.)

David