Re: latex cannot typeset a german \SS
Quoting Thomas Ruedas (ruedas@geophysik.uni-frankfurt.de):
> >It is strange because in the document "LaTeX2e for authors (11 june
> >1997)" (usrguide.dvi.gz) in pages 19-20 (section 3.14 Text commands:
> >all encodings) I can read: "\SS: This command produces a German `SS',
> >that is a capital `beta'. This letter can hyphenate differently from
> >`SS', so is needed for entering all-caps German."
> Strange statement; there actually is no uppercase \ss in german, because
> \ss (which looks somewhat like a lowercase beta) is not really a
> character of the german alphabet, but a ligature (supposedly of s and z,
> there was a longer thread about the topic on comp.text.tex some time
> ago). I must say, I didn't try \SS out, but if you want to type a word
> which normally contains \ss in all-uppercase (or small caps), I suggest
> you replace \ss by SS (not \SS); I'd say that's the default way to
> handle it.
This is exactly the wrong thing to do.
> If you need further help, I recommend you to post the question in
> comp.text.tex
But before you post anything there, I would read the two sentences
again. I think you may be reading an unintended meaning into them.
In particular, the first sentence does not say that TeX sets a large
ß for a capital 'ß'. It says it sets 'SS' which is correct.
[I hope ß appears as the correct glyph for you (scharfes s that
looks like a beta).]
.tex file TeX sets
normal letters ss ss
\ss ß
capital letters SS SS
\SS SS
So why does TeX bother with the control sequence \SS at all?
Because words containing -SS- hyphenate differently according to whether
the -SS- is a capitalised ß (\SS) or a capitalised ss (SS).
Cheers,
--
Email: d.wright@open.ac.uk Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
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official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
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