Some embodiments provide a novel operation for aligning a symbol with an associated character in a digital content processing application. In some embodiments, the alignment operation uses a font property of the character to align the symbol with the character. In some embodiments, the character has a slanted display orientation and the font property is an angle at which the character is slanted. Symbols that are associated with characters include diacritical marks, accents, mathematical symbols that align above or below a character, and other symbols of the character. The character, sometimes referred to as a “base character”, may be a character in text, in an equation, etc.