Re: emphasis in embedded text

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

David Zelinsky <dzpost@dedekind.net> writes:

> I wanted to have some text emphasized when immediately following a
> comma.  I found in the manual the suggestion to use a zero-width space
> character.  That works, except that it turns out that by default emacs
> actually displays the zero-width space as 1-pixel wide.  That's not
> noticeable in a paragraph.  But in an org-mode table, it causes cell
> boundaries to be slightly misaligned.  And with more than one of these
> in a row, it becomes more than slightly.  That is very annoying.

I can see this being very annoying. Another argument to implement proper
pixel-precise table alignment.

Meanwhile, I recommend https://github.com/casouri/valign

> Before I found this, I also stumbled on suggestions (apparently
> predating adoption of the zero-width space paradigm) to customize
> `org-emphasis-regexp-components'.  That actually works very nicely for
> my purpose, so I'll probably stick with that.

Please, don't use it. It is internal variable and changing it will
break things.

> But the point of this post is to suggest that the org-mode manual ought
> to document these things more fully.  The section (12.2 Emphasis and
> Monospace) that mentions the zero-width space approach ought to also
> mention that by default in emacs these are not actually zero width.
> Something like the description in the linked post would be great.

It should not matter ideally. Zero-width space is part of syntax and the
way Emacs displays it usually does not matter. As I said, issues with
non-fixed width symbols in tables should be fixed separately.

> I don't know if this list is the right place to make such a suggestion.
> Should I submit a bug report with some suggested modifications to the
> manual?  Or is this all documented somewhere already and I just didn't
> find it?

This list is the right place for discussions, patches, and bug reports.

> ***NOTE***: I gather there's some controversy about the zero-width space
> approach, especially in regard to exports.  I very much don't want to
> trigger that debate!  I'm merely suggesting the manual say a bit more
> about how things currently work, so others won't spend as much time as I
> did figuring it out :)

+1

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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