🚀 go-pugleaf

I would like the advice of people with experience in the design of fonts
with diacritical marks.

I am in the process of modifying a couple of LaserJet fonts to add several
accented letters, including capitals. The problem is that there is not
enough free space above the letters as they are now to accomodate the accents
without bumping into the descenders from the preceeding line.

I can see three possibitities:

- Squeeze in the accents in whatever space there is and ignore the possi-
  bility of collision with the descenders.

- Increase the headroom above the letters to accomodate the accents, and
  ignore the increased leading this introduces. Since accented capitals
  are rare, this increased blank space would most likely be quite noticeable.
  In that case, should I designate the font by its original point size, or
  should I take the increase into account?

- Squash the capitals that need an accent, so that the letter + accent fit
  in the same space as the unaccented letter. Can that be done without
  totally destroying the appearance of the letters?

I am especially interested in comments from people with experience in such
languages as Czech, Croatian, and Slovenian, since these use variously
shaped diacritics on both consonants and vowels.

Many thanks,

Pierre


Pierre Jelenc                        pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu 
                                    Columbia University, New York