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Date:         Tue, 16 Sep 1997 17:18:06 +0300
From: Adrian Liviu LUDOSAN <aludosan@DNT.RO>
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Subject:      Need help for Romanian characters
Status: R

I have the following problem with the Romanian characters:
There are two letters that I cannot write correctly:
the 'sh' consonant (similar to 'sh' in 'she') and the 'ts' consonant
(approximate similar to 'ts' in 'he puts'). The common solution in LaTeX
is \c{s} and \c{t} but these are not complying with the Romanian
typesetting and grammar rules.
        The correct layout for those letters is a comma (position 44(decimal)
in the standard 7-bit character table) -- not a cedilla (position 24),
under the middle of the 's' or 't' letter, at about 0.2ex distance. The
problem is that the dimension of the comma is about 60 percent from the
ordinary comma (pos. 44).
        Because I want to do something portable I don't want to change the
fonts.
I've tried something like (thanks to Ed Sznyter ews@Babel.Com):

\def\comma#1{#1\vbox to 0pt{\vskip .15ex\hbox to
0pt{\setbox0=\hbox{#1}\kern -\wd0\hss$\scriptscriptstyle ,$\hss}\vss}}

but this is not working all the fonts and for all the styles.

        Is there a way to take the current font (without naming it explicitly)
and to scale it (decreasing)? It is possible to write a macro that
scales the comma relatively to the current font size (and style)? I know
that the \superscript scales the fonts correctly, independent of the
font family.

        Can you help me to write a macro to make those letters?

        Thanks,
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Adrian Liviu LUDOSAN                mailto:aludosan@dnt.ro
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
                 Nu mor caii c^and vor c^anii!