Am Sonntag 08 August 2010, 05:23:27 schrieb Michael Lynch: > On 07/08/2010 23:32, Ross Moore wrote: > > Hi Peter, Sebastien, > > > > On 08/08/2010, at 7:33 AM, Peter Dyballa<peter_dyba...@web.de> > > > > wrote: > >> Am 07.08.2010 um 22:44 schrieb Sebastian Gerecke: > >>> BUT: This just has to be an utter hack and I can not believe it > >>> is the way it is supposed to be done. > >> > >> This hack is necessary because mhchem is not aware of font > >> features, it's a simple LaTeX package that maltreats simple TeX > >> fonts in the usual ways. > >> > >>> I'm putting the scientific inferior numbers in the upper > >>> position, and the scientific superiors in the lower position. > >>> Does that make sense to anyone? > > > > The usual LaTeX way to do this would be to use the \sideset command > > from AMSMath, that is with \usepackage{amsmath}. > > > > But this would be placing the usual ASCII numerals, and not using the > > Unicode inferior and superior numerals. Those characters are very new > > to the TeX world. A Google search brings up only a few mentions of > > them on Microsoft pages. Thus you are not likely to find a good > > solution having easy syntax, until someone writes a macro specially > > for it, for use with XeTeX and other Unicode-aware TeX processing. > > > > If I've understood this correctly, you want the positioning of > > \sideset with the characters being the Unicode superiors and > > inferiors, which are full-sized glyphs. Furthermore, the input syntax > > should be intuitive, allowing use of either ASCII numerals or the > > Unicode points directly, for maximum flexibility. > > > > Should such support be in the unicode-math package? Probably not, as > > super-/subscripts in math usually have the usual numerical meaning, > > so it would be wrong to use separate characters, just for a purely > > visual effect. > > > > Is a chemist going to learn about Unicode and XeTeX just to typeset > > isotope names correctly? We could be so lucky! > > > > However maybe if someone on this list develops such a macro, it could > > go into xltxtra.sty . > > > >> Well, otherwise it would look much worse... > > > > Indeed. > > > >> -- Mit friedvollen Grüßen > >> > >> Pete > > > > Hope this helps, > > > > Ross > > > Hello all, > > I don't know anything about \sideset, but does this do what's needed? > > \newlength{\atomicwidth} > \DeclareRobustCommand{\elem}[3]{% > \settowidth{\atomicwidth}{\textsubscript{#2}}% > \textsuperscript{#1}\hspace{-\atomicwidth}\textsubscript{#2}#3 > } > > \elem{14}{6}{C} > > (I've attached an example file demonstrating it.) > > This seems to produce the desired output, is easy to use, and has the > advantage of playing equally nicely with fonts that don't have the > required features. > > Mike
Hello Mike, thanks for your code -- it works perfectly :-) Much better actually than my own solution which is having a problem with different font sizes. This really solves my problem. Thanks to everyone your help and attention. Cheers Sebastian -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex