[XeTeX] Making a .fmt file using XeTeX

[Jonathan Kew]

On 19 Feb 2005, at 4:57 pm, Stephen Moye wrote:

> I have solved all of the problems so far, but I have a new one.
>
> Some of the documents have an 'i' with a dieresis: ï
>
> If I create a simple document:
>
> %&program=xetex
>
> \font\rm="Hoefler Text" at 10pt
>
> \rm
>
> Anaïs Nin Altinaï
>
> \bye
>
> the characters print correctly.
>
> I have created a .xfmt file and when I use that the characters are 
> missing in the PDF although they are present in the TeX file. What is 
> the difference? Should the .tex file that serves as the basis for the 
> .xfmt file have something like %&encoding=utf-8 at the head of the 
> file?

No, but you may need one in your .tex document that contains the ï.

%&encoding=.... is an indication to TeXShop as to what encoding it 
should use to save (or load) the document (overriding the default 
specified in Preferences). If you save a file with characters such as ï 
using MacRoman encoding, they won't be read properly by XeTeX because 
it expects all input to be Unicode.

JK