My application needs to display "orphaned" combining characters. I would like to use the same format as the "official" unicode charts, using the dotted circl
Just tried this: create a blank .html file, copy the text, and load in Firefox. Displays as expected (although I really didn't expect space+combining character to display correctly):
<html>
<body>
<font size="24pt">
◌̀
◌́
◌̂
◌̃
<br/>
À
Á
Â
Ã
<br/>
 ̀
 ́
 ̂
 ̃
</font>
</body>
</html>
I don't think there is an official placeholder character. The way I read that note, they chose U+25CC
arbitrarily, purely for display purposes. Then, in the chart where the "real" dotted circle is listed, they made it a little larger to emphasize that it's not being used as a placeholder there. (Or maybe they shrunk it in the other charts; as you said, the note's poorly worded.)
Whatever the case, I don't see any reason not to use U+25CC
as your placeholder.