What web fonts work with MÄori macrons?
What web fonts work with MÄori macrons?
Question
We are currently developing a website which uses the MÄori language (from New Zealand): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_language
For correct pronunciation the written form of MÄori uses macrons - horizontal lines over vowels to signify a long vowel.
Our issue is that most web fonts seem to revert macron characters to some sort of default, which looks terrible. Here's how the (assumed) defaulting behaviour appears in a MÄori saying:
I'm hoping there's a list somewhere of web fonts that correctly support MÄori macrons, but I have been unable to find it via Google.
Does a list exist, or is there an easy way of working out what web fonts will work with MÄori macrons?
Accepted Answer
We got there in the end and I thought it was worth adding our experiences for anyone who stumbles across this post.
The site we were working on was on Squarespace, using Typekit font packages.
It turns out the default delivery for Typekit doesn't include the macron characters. By setting up our own Typekit and selecting "All Characters" we could get a (much larger) Typekit that supported macrons.
So the issue wasn't so much with the font sets not supporting macrons but more with the default font delivery not supporting macrons.
Popular Answer
I think the best approach is to use the advanced search tool on your web font service. For example, if you're using Google Fonts, you'd search for "Latin Extended" fonts, and use "Ä a" as the test text, to confirm that it contains the macron'd a in the font.
