Re: Documentation (was Re: [OS X TeX] Kanbun (漢文) and French...)

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

On dimanche 04 janv. 09, at 02:11, Jonathan Kew wrote:

> On 3 Jan 2009, at 09:50, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:

>> Why is it necessary to specify a font ?
>
> Because xetex is not responsible for making typographic design  
> choices, only for carrying out the instructions of the document  
> author/designer.

If it uses the default Computer Modern (for whatever reason) it _is_  
making a design choice. It seems to me that making things uselessly  
obfuscated to be able to type a few French accents (or other latin  
characters, since Latin seems to be the default in Computer Modern) is  
also a design choice.

Since I renamed this subthread "Documentation", I'd like to mention  
that when one checks the XeteX top page there is no link to any  
documentation set. The only reference there is is a one liner bellow  
the screenshots, like at the bottom of the second screen of data (for  
a reasonably sized browser window).

The download page, similarly, puts the download links on the second  
screen, while the first screen indicates an obsolete "latest version".

I eventually bumped into the documentation by googling "xetex  
documentation", because the current page layout does not make it  
obvious at all where one can find it. But more that that, the simple  
preamble that made it work was found in the XeteX article on  
Wikipedia...

Talk about "design choices" !!!

>> I have just created (copy-pasted from the XeteX CJK sample) a new  
>> command:
>>
>> \newcommand{\cjk}[1]{{\fontspec[Scale=0.9]{Hiragino Mincho Pro}#1}}
>>
>> for Japanese strings that appear within French sentences.
>>
>> But how can I be sure that the font I set for CJK is of the same  
>> style as Times (the one I choose as the main font) for ex ?
>
> It's not clear to me what it would mean for a Japanese font to be  
> "of the same style as" a Latin one.

Well, it is not clear to me either. But obviously, latin character in  
Times and Japanese characters in Osaka would not look like they belong  
together, unless it is a "design choice".




Jean-Christophe Helary