1-minute answer
A combining diacritic is a separate mark (like an accent) that stacks onto the letter before it — different from a precomposed character where the letter and accent are a single, fixed code point.
01 Step by step, per platform
A real, followable procedure for every platform — not a thin restatement of the shortcut.
Precomposed vs. combining
- é as ONE character is U+00E9 (precomposed).
- é as TWO characters is e (U+0065) + a combining acute accent (U+0301) stacked on top — same visual result, different underlying data.
Why it matters
- Search and string-matching can fail if one system uses precomposed and another uses combining form for the "same" text.
- Most software normalizes to one form (NFC) automatically, but copy-pasted text sometimes carries the other form silently.
02 FAQ
How do I fix text that looks right but won't search-match?
Run it through Unicode normalization (NFC) — most programming languages have a built-in normalize() function that converts combining sequences to their precomposed equivalent.
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