Polish Diacritics: how to?

[Introduction] [Kropka] [Kreska] [Ogonek] [Stroke]

kropka: dotaccent

Kropka (dotaccent, dot above) ist the least problematic diactiric. Kropka can be placed above the small and capital Z (zdotaccent, Zdotaccent). In small zdotaccent (phon. zh), the kropka should be always identically shaped and placed as the dot above i. It should be always visually centered relative to the letter z.

If a typeface includes only capital letters (e.g.: Carol Twombly's Trajan), the dotaccent should be shaped just as the dots in the diaeresis (umlaut), it may be a bit larger, though.

The Polish word kropka means dot. The diminutive kropeczka is sometimes used, too.

kropka should match the i letter

In capital Zdotaccent, you should use the same kropka and place it centered. The vertical placement of the kropka accent should adhere the placement of the kreska accent in capital Zacute. The kropka may vertically align to the top, middle or bottom of the kreska accent, while the distance between the kropka and the capital Z shoud visually match the distance between the kropka and the small z.

kropka in the capitals should match other uppercase accents

Some of the common errors include the wrong placement and/or shaping/size of the kropka accent.

common errors in kropka placement and shaping

Designers must be very careful when positioning kropka in italics. In italic faces, the kreska should centrainly be centered relative to the slanted axis. As you can see at the example of Georgia by Matthew Carter, even very experienced designers can forget that, so that the kropka "runs away".

If you design a typeface and want to include the dotaccent character, take the i letter from your typeface, copy it to dotaccent and remove the the main part, leaving only the dot. Then adjust the sidebearings of the dotaccent character to match the widths of the other accent characters.

designers must be very careful when positioning kropka in italics


[Introduction] [Kropka] [Kreska] [Ogonek] [Stroke]


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