[XeTeX] \font syntax

[John Was]

Could we perhaps have something like \extrafontdirs=d:/testfonts; 
c:/newfonts   etc. etc.
allowing individual users to specify the locations of fonts on their own 
system?

I still don't get XeTeX seamlessly to access all the fonts on my Windows XP 
platform - some it loads, some it doesn't, even though all are completely 
accessible in ordinary Windows applications.  But I'd almost forgotten that 
I had this issue since I've got into the habit of specifying the precise 
location of the fonts I want to use, using the [ ] convention.  This 
sometimes leads to very long path-names to the font, so I'd find it useful 
to specify directories in a general instruction as suggested above.  I think 
even those who don't experience the glitches that I get will want from time 
to time to examine and experiment with the features of a font that they 
don't necessarily want to load on to their system until they are sure that 
it will do all they want it to.  In these cases one might even want to 
specify font locations on the CD drive, or on some remote computer on the 
network.

John



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruno Voisin" <bvoisin at mac.com>
To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 12:56 PM
Subject: JunkEmail: Re: [XeTeX] \font syntax


Le 31 juil. 07 à 13:27, Jonathan Kew a écrit :

> But I'm
> interested to hear what people think.... anyone else with opinions on
> this?

The syntax "..." for a font name is slightly confusing, given double
quotes have for some time been used in TeX (at least on the Mac) to
delimit a file name, for example in a \special or \includegraphics
command, allowing the file name to include spaces.

Personally I never completely understood what a font name is exactly
(Full name, or PostScript name, or Unique name).

I must admit I'm quite lost among the various font calls in XeTeX
(with or without quotes, with or without brackets), and the various
ways in which they are used in fontspec commands in LaTeX. I'm
waiting for an updated XeTeX documentation to look at this seriously.

If a default has to be chosen, I don't think it should be file name
specification ([...] if I understood correctly). Compatibility with
standard TeX (i.e. Knuth's TeX) would dictate tfm name, while user-
friendliness would dictate font name. But being a Mac addict and
quite reluctant to anything command-line (including path and file
name specifications), I'm certainly biased about those things.

Bruno Voisin
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