desideratum: the zero-width joiner for Syriac

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Sayyaar
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:49 pm

desideratum: the zero-width joiner for Syriac

Post by Sayyaar »

Greetings all.

I've been trying to determine whether it is possible in Mellel to insert a zero-width joiner using the Meltho fonts for Syriac. So far, although there is an option in the Insert menu to insert zero-width joiners for Arabic, there does not seem to be a way to do this in Syriac. The Meltho fonts do support this character, since their documentation describes it, but the documentation is for Windows. Does anyone know if it is possible to insert a zero-width joiner while using Syriac?

A word of explanation: the zero-width joiner is needed to force the font to produce the initial or final connected version of, e.g., the nun character in isolation. This is important in textual criticism: I need to surround the correct character or sequence of characters with brackets in order to indicate a conjectural or uncertain restoration in places where the manuscript is physically damaged.
SYR
Sayyaar
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:49 pm

Re: desideratum: the zero-width joiner for Syriac

Post by Sayyaar »

I've found a kind of workaround, for those who are interested. Examining the codepages for the Meltho font revealed that an Arabic joiner character U+0640 is available. Turns out it works with the Meltho Syriac fonts in Mellel. It is not zero width, but it makes manuscript editing possible. I assigned the character to a Text Expander snippet for quick use.
SYR
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