Question about running headers in master pages

Report · Oct 14, 2023

So, I have some text using the Navajo alphabet in some of my running headers. The font I'm using doesn't have all of the non-English characters, so I just kind of made them using the characters and placing the diacritics on them manually. But, the actual page numbers are longer than the page number place holder, so the page numbers are pushing the chapter title to the left, leaving the diacritics in the wrong place. Is there a way to tie these diacritics to the actual letters they're supposed to be attached to?

Report · Oct 14, 2023

The best thing you could possibly do is pick a font that supports all of the languages in your project. It might be the only thing you can do. Fortunately, the glyph complement you'd need for Navajo support, beyond normal Latin script, is pretty minimal. What font are you using right now?

Most of the ways one can fake diacritical marks that work in the way you ask (like kerning accents into place, or anchoring frames with accents above the text frame) won't work with variables like running headers. There are plenty of possible solutions, but none of them allow you to simply add some graphical or textual element to DOOK'O'OO'SLIID and then use it in a text variable like a running header. You could skip the running header variable, and make a parent page for each running head you need, I suppose, but that sounds like enough manual click-and-shovel work that you might be better off simply switching to a font that supports your target language.

Report · Oct 14, 2023

Well, I suspect that you're using Fjalla One (which I found in use on the Detritus Books webpage). If so, then you're in luck, because your font actually has everything you need to typeset Navajo. It has the l with stroke:

It also has all of the combining accents you'd need to work with Navajo:

So, are you trying to key in the Navajo yourself? If so, be prepared to spend a great deal of time scrolling the Glyphs menu (Type -> Glyphs). This can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially if you don't read Navajo. (The little arrow buttons in the lower right hand corner increase and decrease the size of the onscreen glyph preview in that panel.) If someone is giving you already-keyed Navajo text (in a Word doc, in email, in Slack, something like that) then it should Just Work, and if it doesn't you can tell us how it's not Just Working and we can figure out an alternate route to getting your Navajo type into your book without needing to spend hours scrolling through the Glyphs menu.