[texworks] TeXworks & XeTeX : Pinyin u-with-third-tone

[Jonathan Kew]

On 3 Jan 2012, at 15:29, Philip TAYLOR wrote:

> Dear XeTeX & TeXworks users ...
> 
> When typesetting this year's Christmas newsletter, I ran into
> real problems with the names of one of my friends, who in
> Pinyin requires a third-tone u ("ǔ"); neither in TeXworks
> nor in the final typeset document could I get this to appear.
> In TeXworks, it appeared as a heavy solidus; in the typeset
> document, as a blank space. Is this a really rare character
> in font terms, and if not, which fonts would you recommend
> for (a) TeXworks, and (b) the final typeset document ?  In
> the end, I had to substitute "ŭ", which is superficially
> similar and easily understood by any reader of Pinyin, but
> is not really the right character for the job.

For TeXworks, if you like editing with a monospaced font, I'd expect DejaVu Sans Mono to support it. For typesetting, DejaVu Serif or Sans would be possibilities, depending on the look you want, or how about SIL's Gentium or Charis?

There are no doubt lots more possibilities, but it's true that many (both commercial and free) Western-centric fonts don't support this character; you may need to look at fonts that are deliberately intended to be more "global" in their coverage.

JK