MWE:

\starttext

$a^2′$

$a′^2$

$\mathord{a′}^2$

$a^*^2$

\stoptext

Should the \mathord{} be necessary to get the desired result? (I would expect the second line to work, just like $a^*^2$.)

On 12/27/2022 6:33 PM, Alan Braslau via ntg-context wrote: primes are kind of special and a pain in tex - traditional tex sees them as superscripts and therefore expects soem active character and parsing magick for successive scripts - that assumes a special way of havign these primes in the font (read: is it a text size thing already raised or a script one not yet raised) - it also sort of spoils spacing (as one can end up with an empty nucleus inserted) - in mkiv we use different magick than in mkii anyway, in lmtx (luametatex) primes have been promoted to first class citizens which means that a nucleus can have - super(post)script - sub(post)script - superprescript - subprescript - prime and each comes with spacing and positioning properties cf opentype and our own additions for the pre/prime) there is some magick wrt subscripts as these often are indices (which is why we have for instance ^^^ and ___ too) What you can do is: $\primed{a}^2$ which basically makes the prime an operation .. a small price to pay for more robust handling of primes (also across fonts) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------