Ê character used in a template leads to square characters being added

Question

I've downloaded a CV template to play with from here, all is going well when I'm outputting with XeLaTeX apart from one thing, I can't understand the use of the string

Ê Ê Ê Ê&

In this piece of markup

\begin{tabularx}{0.97\linewidth}{>{\raggedleft\scshape}p{2cm}X}
\gray Period & \textbf{March 2009 --- August 2010 (Part Time)}\\
\gray Employer & \textbf{Buy More} \hfill New York, USA\\
\gray Job Title & \textbf{Supermarket Clerk}\\
Ê Ê Ê Ê& Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec et auctor neque. Nullam ultricies sem sit amet magna tristique imperdiet.
\end{tabularx}

Outputting with that string in makes the document format properly however leaves behind four square characters, removing them causes the format of the entire document to fall apart.

What's going on here? I'm using a different font to the template as I don't have the font specified on my OS (linux mint).

Answer 1

I would guess your log says

Missing character: There is no � in font cmcsc10!
Missing character: There is no � in font cmcsc10!
Missing character: There is no � in font cmcsc10!
Missing character: There is no � in font cmcsc10!
Missing character: There is no � in font cmcsc10!

Which is what I get from the (complete) document

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{color}
\def\gray{\color[rgb]{.5,.5,.5}}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabularx}{0.97\linewidth}{>{\raggedleft\scshape}p{2cm}X}
\gray Period & \textbf{March 2009 --- August 2010 (Part Time)}\\
\gray Employer & \textbf{Buy More} \hfill New York, USA\\
\gray Job Title & \textbf{Supermarket Clerk}\\
Ê Ê Ê Ê& Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec et auctor neque. Nullam ultricies sem sit amet magna tristique imperdiet.
\end{tabularx}

\end{document}

You could add something like

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Adventor}

To change the font choice but I'm not sure of a font that has the accented letters in small caps. (None of the ones I tried did)

---

I assume you don't want exactly that string typeset but if you don't want the small caps accented letters at all, just miss them out:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{color}
\def\gray{\mbox{}\color[rgb]{.5,.5,.5}}

%\usepackage{fontspec}
%\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Adventor}


\begin{document}

\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{0.97\linewidth}{>{\raggedleft\scshape}p{2cm}X}
\gray Period & \textbf{March 2009 --- August 2010 (Part Time)}\\
\gray Employer & \textbf{Buy More} \hfill New York, USA\\
\gray Job Title & \textbf{Supermarket Clerk}\\
& Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec et auctor neque. Nullam ultricies sem sit amet magna tristique imperdiet.
\end{tabularx}

\end{document}