This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Why do accents/diacritics float to the right in FF12 on Windows, but not on Mac OSX?

  • 1 jibu
  • 1 ana tatizo hili
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by bencomp

more options

It appears that Firefox on Windows shows accents that have not been normalized according to the Unicode Normalization Form C to the right of the character. In some cases the accent is still over the correct character, in other cases it is completely over the next character to the right.

Next to symbols with an accent "included", for example é, one can take the symbol without accent and add the accent afterwards, like é. You shouldn't be able to see a difference, but I find that in some cases I do. The Open Library webpage linked with this report renders normally in Firefox on a Mac, but on Windows the accents in the author's name float to the right and are visibly disconnected from the letters. The font used for the name on the website is Trebuchet MS, but the same font with the same text in LibreOffice renders just fine.

It appears that Firefox on Windows shows accents that have not been normalized according to the Unicode Normalization Form C to the right of the character. In some cases the accent is still over the correct character, in other cases it is completely over the next character to the right. Next to symbols with an accent "included", for example é, one can take the symbol without accent and add the accent afterwards, like é. You shouldn't be able to see a difference, but I find that in some cases I do. The Open Library webpage linked with this report renders normally in Firefox on a Mac, but on Windows the accents in the author's name float to the right and are visibly disconnected from the letters. The font used for the name on the website is Trebuchet MS, but the same font with the same text in LibreOffice renders just fine.

All Replies (1)

more options

Other fonts show the same issue, as the second image demonstrates.