Oh, thank you this is almost what I needed. <div>I say almost because it works quite well in the middle of a word, but if the line contains only that glyph (this is what I've done as a first try), the macron ends up to go <b>below</b> the letter, instead of going <b>above</b> it...</div>
<div>I wish I knew the syntax of TeX as well as you do, but unfortunately I don't. I tried to change some of the parameters of the \def you suggested, but it went even worse, so I gave up.</div><div>However, thank you very much.</div>
<div>A.K.</div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 9:37 PM, John Was <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:john.was@ntlworld.com">john.was@ntlworld.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2">Hello Artemij</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2">As an interim measure (until an
elegant solution is suggested), you can set the non-zero-width macron (positiong
00AF) on top of the schwa thus:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2"></font> </div>
<div>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font size="2"><font face="Courier New">\def\overstrike#1#2{\setbox0=\hbox{#1}\setbox1=\hbox{#2}\copy0</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font size="2"><font face="Courier New"><span>
</span>\kern -0.5\wd0 \kern -0.5\wd1 \copy1 \kern -0.5\wd1 \kern
0.5\wd0}</font></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">\overstrike{<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə</font></span>}{<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">¯</font></span>}</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">Of course that is tedious to type, so, after defining
\overstrike as above, you can use something like</font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">\def\<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə{<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">\overstrike{<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə</font></span>}{<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">¯</font></span>}</font></span>}</font></span></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB">Then for the schwa with macron just type
{\<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə} or simply \<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə if you don't mind adding a space after
it in the middle of a word, and an explicit space (\ ) after it if it comes at
the end of a word (personally I prefer {\<span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman">ə}so one doesn't have to think about the following
space).</font></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB">This isn't very nice but it might help if you are in a hurry to get
through some piece of work, and you can search and replace on it afterwards when
something better is
suggested.</span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB">Best</span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<font color="#888888">
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB">John</span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span></font></span></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:'Minion Pro'"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:'Minion Pro'"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p></font></div><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial Unicode MS" size="2"></font> </div>
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="padding-right:0px;padding-left:5px;margin-left:5px;border-left:#000000 2px solid;margin-right:0px">
<div style="font:10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background:#e4e4e4;font:10pt arial"><b>From:</b>
<a title="jadolov.chat@gmail.com" href="mailto:jadolov.chat@gmail.com" target="_blank">jadolov
k</a> </div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a title="xetex@tug.org" href="mailto:xetex@tug.org" target="_blank">Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other
platforms</a> </div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, May 18, 2009 2:58 PM</div>
<div style="font:10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [XeTeX] lacking precomposed
character</div>
<div><br></div>Hi to all,
<div>What I need to obtain is a certain character with the macro sign above it
(namely, a schwa with a macron, that serves to the transliteration needs for
Ancient Indonesian). However, the Unicode standard lacks a precomposed entry
for that character. Still, with the package <b>Xunicode</b> I can use the
command <b>\=</b> to add a combining unicode compliant macron sign to any
character (can't I?). The problem is that the font I use (Minion Pro) does not
have a good combining macron glyph. Therefore, when I write<b>
\={<something_strange>}</b> I obtain only
this <b><something_strange></b> followed by a null character
instead of being "covered" with a macron. </div>
<div>So, my question is: is there some way to substitute the glyph used by
Xunicode as the macron sign? something similar to the command
<b>\textsuperscript*</b> or <b>\fakesuperscript</b> provided by the
package <b>xltxtra</b>.</div>
<div>Any idea?</div>
<div>Thank all the people in advance.</div>
<div>Artemij Keidan</div></blockquote></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>