> From: Peter T. Daniels [mailto:grammatim@...]

> MSWord can do overstrikes. Back in 5.1, it was in an Appendix in the
> Manual (remember Manuals?). In 97/98 and 2000/2001, and presumably in
> later versions, it's buried in the formulas department and there's no
> documentation whatsoever.

In Word 2003, the functionality is still there, and is still documented -- it's done using \o() in an "Eq" (equation) field. For instance, I've entered the following text element into my Rich Text message (not sure how this will show up in your mail client) using the field code {eq \o(a,/)}.

> Somewhere between 5.1 and 97, they seem to have given up the possibility
> of nesting formulas, so I can't really do an underdot -- "Subscript"
> style reduces the size as well as moving it down, and increasing the
> size makes it not align in the middle.

If you want to enter a Latin character with a dot below, such as (say) d with underdot, the best thing to do is to enter the appropriate Unicode character sequence in Word 2003 and display it with an appropriate OpenType font, such as Doulos SIL: d�

Subscripts and superscripts are implemented in word processors in various ways. For several versions of Word, two different approaches have actually been supported:

- super-/subscript formatting, which reduces the point size and raises/lowers the baseline: 2nx

- raising or lowering the baseline in the Character Spacing tab of the Format|Font dialog, which simply raises or lowers the baseline by the amount you specify: 2nx

Such approaches do not provide true typographic super-/subscripts. Look for true typographic super-/subscripts implemented using OpenType in apps like Adobe InDesign or in future versions of Word.



Peter Constable


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