[XeTeX] asterism

[Michiel Kamermans]

Khaled,
> Editing fonts isn't usually that easy, legally and technically, and
> waiting for some commercial fonts to fix bugs or add new glyphs can take
> ages, if it ever happens. TeX is a powerful engine and can sometimes do
> what is otherwise almost impossible (I don't know any other typesetting
> system that would allow me to move glyphs in the two dimensions freely),
> and shouldn't be afraid to make use of it, even TeX's logo demonstrate
> this :)

Yeah, I know, just musing about the stylistic vs. text interpretation of 
the solution in this thread. As a stylistic marker (like a bullet or a 
fleuron) the compound command solution is quite nice, and paired with 
\ActualText it's even a functional text solution. However, if the 
generalised solution starts to involve a necessity to manipulate the 
vertical spacing of the compound based on the asterisk's glyph metrics, 
which will be different depending on the font used (unlike the TeX logo, 
which is really only "correct" in Computer Modern, and "accidentally 
correct" for fonts with identical glyph metrics for the letters T, E and 
X) then the usefulness of the solution for other people who might run 
into this problem in the future might become an issue =)

Just thinking out loud.

- Mike