[tex-hyphen] ruhyphen and ot2

[Vladimir Volovich]

Hi Per,

"PS" == Per Starback writes:

 PS> ... \usepackage[OT2]{fontenc} ...
 PS> \showhyphens{perevodyat}
[...]
 PS> Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) in paragraph at lines 5--5 []
 PS> \OT2/cmr/m/n/10 pe-re-vo-dy-at ^ Note hyphenation in letter ya
 PS> --/

 PS> So I guess it is necessary to add patterns like y8a when using
 PS> OT2?

generally speaking, yes; but an attempt to do that will give error
messages because such patterns will conflict with other entries in
typical pattern sets (such as ruhyphal.tex).

e.g., koi2ot2.tex (which is part of the ruhyphen package) contains
such additional patterns commented out:

% additional patterns to avoid ugly results when breaking OT2-specific ligatures
%\patterns{ c8h d8j k8h l8j n8j s8h s8h8c8h t8s x8q y8a y8u z8h }

if you'll uncomment it, you'll likely get errors when regenerating
format file(s). [but you may press "enter" a few times to ignore these
errors, and see if it helps, i.e. if it will override the patterns
from the main file such as ruhyphal.tex and prevent breaking ligatures]

because of these "abuse" of the ligatures, it is best to avoid using
the OT2-encoded fonts, because the hyphenation significantly suffers
in this case. whenever possible, use the 8-bit encoded fonts (e.g. T2A).

note also that we have provided an alternative font metrics for the
OT2-encoded LH fonts, without suhc "abusive" ligatures. to use them,
switch to the "wlcyr" or "wlcyss" font family. (see ot2wncyr.fd,
ot2wncyss.fd)

in this case, combinations like "ya" will not work as they do in the
"usual" OT2-encoded fonts. so you may use e.g. macros like \cyrya to
access any glyphs. but this approach doesn't solve in full the
hyphenation deficiencies; so still the best way is to use the 8-bit
font encoding.

Best,
v.