Fonts & Character Sets ⇒ XeLaTeX | Arabic Footnotes in Superscript with certain Fonts

[hpcalc]

I am using arabic footnotes in my text. When trying out how the text would look like with different fonts, I've discovered that some of them don't format arabic footnotes in superscript. Here is an example (I'm using xelatex from MiKTeX 2.9 because I don't want to do special installations for all non-standard fonts):

Code: Select all

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{xltxtra}
%\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text,Ligatures=Common]{Latin Modern Roman}
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text,Ligatures=Common]{Linux Libertine O}
\usepackage[perpage]{footmisc}
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{{\it \arabic{footnote}}}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
This is text\footnote{one statement, actually} with footnote.
\end{document}

With Latin Modern Roman I get superscripts and with Linux Libertine O (and some other professional fonts) I don't. I thought they would be somehow approximated, but they are not.

Question: How can I get (italic) superscript arabic footnotes with fonts which don't provide them by default?

[hpcalc]

It seems that the following definition of \thefootnote forces xelatex to use superscript (and italic) arabic footnotes in proper font:

Code: Select all

% old definition
%\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{{\it \arabic{footnote}}}

% new definition
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{$^{\it \arabic{footnote}}$}