Text Formatting ⇒ Quoting in ancient greek by using space between letters

[Nikos]

Hello! I 'm preparing a critical edition of text in ancient greek with latex. I use package ledmac for this reason. I want to quote by spacing the letters of the words quoted. I tried to use soul package but when i have to use combination of accents it doesnt work. Any idea on it? Thank you...

[gmedina]

Hi,

have you tried adding the problematic accents via the \soulaccent command? (Section 5.1 "Adding accents" (page 14) of the soul package documentation).

[Nikos]

Yes i did make the *.cgf file but nothing!!!
I will give a short example to make my self more clear...

Let's say that i want to quote by using space between letters the ancient greek word [εἶναι = ε ἶ ν α ι]. This means that i should define as accent both small signs above [ι].

I should do it for both of them, because when you write ancient greek in the input to produce these, you use [ε>~ιναι]. So someone would expect that by writing [\so{ε\>~ιναι}] would give [ε ἶ ν α ι].

But there are 2 troubles.
1. If i make accent for only one of them, then the output comes with 2 separated characters [\so{ε\>\~ιναι}] = [ε ' ῖ ν α ι].

2. If i do it for both of them > is missing at all.

So, I tried to use *.cgf but it either still ignores > as accent above letter [ἰ] or it cannot make combination with ~ to create [ἶ].

I hope i was clear. Sorry but english is not my mother language and it is rather complicated and specialized subject. Thank you!

[gmedina]

Hi,

can you please post a complete compilable minimal code showing the example from your last post? Only include in the example the document class, the packages used to typeset that Greek word, and in the body of the document, just that word (εἶναι) as you would normally write it in a .tex document.

...I hope i was clear. Sorry but english is not my mother language and it is rather complicated and specialized subject...

Yes, you were clear enough; and don't worry, English is not my native Language either.

[Nikos]

Sorry for giving all the code, but i want to be sure that it is not matter of conflict between packages (ex. ledmac vs soul, line numbering etc.).
Ok here we go...

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[german,frenchb,english,polutonikogreek]{babel}
\usepackage[iso-8859-7]{inputenc}
\usepackage{soul}
\usepackage{letterspace}
\usepackage{ledmac}
\lineation{section}
\linenummargin{left}
\sidenotemargin{outer}
\renewcommand{\notenumfont}{\footnotesize}
\newcommand{\notetextfont}{\footnotesize}

%\let\Afootnoterule=\relax
\let\Bfootnoterule=\relax
\let\Cfootnoterule=\relax

\addtolength{\skip\Afootins}{1.5mm}
%\addtolength{\skip\Bfootins}{1.5mm}
%\addtolength{\skip\Cfootins}{1.5mm}

\makeatletter

\renewcommand*{\para@vfootnote}[2]{%
\insert\csname #1footins\endcsname
\bgroup
\notefontsetup
\footsplitskips
\l@dparsefootspec #2\ledplinenumtrue % new from here
\ifnum\@nameuse{previous@#1@number}=\l@dparsedstartline\relax
\ledplinenumfalse
\fi
\ifnum\previous@page=\l@dparsedstartpage\relax
\else \ledplinenumtrue \fi
\ifnum\l@dparsedstartline=\l@dparsedendline\relax
\else \ledplinenumtrue \fi
\expandafter\xdef\csname previous@#1@number\endcsname{\l@dparsedstartline}
\xdef\previous@page{\l@dparsedstartpage} % to here
\setbox0=\vbox{\hsize=\maxdimen
\noindent\csname #1footfmt\endcsname#2}%
\setbox0=\hbox{\unvxh0}%
\dp0=0pt
\ht0=\csname #1footfudgefactor\endcsname\wd0
\box0
\penalty0
\egroup
}

\newcommand*{\previous@A@number}{-1}
\newcommand*{\previous@B@number}{-1}
\newcommand*{\previous@C@number}{-1}
\newcommand*{\previous@page}{-1}
\newcommand{\abb}[1]{#1%
\let\rbracket\nobrak\relax}
\newcommand{\nobrak}{\textnormal{}}
\newcommand{\morenoexpands}{%
\let\abb=0%
}

\newcommand{\Aparafootfmt}[3]{%
\ledsetnormalparstuff
\scriptsize
\notenumfont\printlines#1|\enspace
% \lemmafont#1|#2\enskip
\notetextfont
#3\penalty-10\hskip 1em plus 4em minus.4em\relax}


\newcommand{\Bparafootfmt}[3]{%
\ledsetnormalparstuff
\notenumfont\printlines#1|\enspace
% \lemmafont#1|#2\enskip
\notetextfont
#3\penalty-10\hskip 1em plus 4em minus.4em\relax}

\newcommand{\Cparafootfmt}[3]{%
\ledsetnormalparstuff
\notenumfont\printlines#1|\enspace
% \lemmafont#1|#2\enskip
\notetextfont
#3\penalty-10\hskip 1em plus 4em minus.4em\relax}
\makeatother

\footparagraph{A}
\footparagraph{B}
\footparagraph{C}
\let\Afootfmt=\Aparafootfmt
\let\Bfootfmt=\Bparafootfmt
\let\Cfootfmt=\Cparafootfmt

\emergencystretch40pt

\begin{document}
\beginnumbering
\so{ε>~ιναι}
\end{document}

This "should" give as result [ε ἶ ν α ι], but it does not... Thank you very much!!!

[gmedina]

Hi,

a reduced working version of your code:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[german,frenchb,english,polutonikogreek]{babel}
\usepackage[iso-8859-7]{inputenc}
\usepackage{soul}

% define a command \mya that will place the problematic accent
% and then add \soulaccent{\mya} to the file soul.cfg 
\newcommand\mya{>~}

\begin{document}

\so{ε\mya ιναι}

\end{document}

The idea is simply to define a new command (I called it \mya in the example) for the problematic accent, and then to add the line

Code: Select all

\soulaccent{\mya}

to the file soul.cfg.

Of course, in my example I suppressed parts of your code not relevant to this problem, but there shouldn't be any incompatibilities once you use your complete code.

[Nikos]

Ok! It works.... Just a small correction to your code for definition command.

If we keep

Code: Select all

\newcommand\mya{>~}

in the output the accent appears in the very left side of the letter [ *ι ]. In order to have it exactly on top of the letter [ἶ] we should define the command as

Code: Select all

\newcommand\mya{>~ι}.

The handicap of this method is that if we want to you use similar accents with other combination of letter we should define commands for every letter.

Anyway, it works so i 'm really happy... Thank you so much! You are my hero... take care...

[Laurentius]

Is there no less cumbersome way of doing this?