[XeTeX] XeLaTeX and Mathematics

Will Robertson wspr81 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 19 20:16:25 CEST 2008


Hey Andrew,

On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Andrew Moschou <andmos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Will (although you didn't answer my questions).

Well, I mentioned it was too late to reply coherently. As now,
actually :) But here goes:

You can use \DeclareSymbolFont to define maths fonts with XeTeX
sensibly (I think there's an example in unicode-math that might
demonstrate this), but all of the LaTeX methods for defining maths
symbols themselves assume explicitly that a font has 8-bit glyph
slots. This means you can only redefine ascii letters and a few
symbols using \DeclareMathSymbol (et al.).

And as for italic correction (or equivalent) in maths mode: no. You
have to do that sort of adjustment in the font itself.

>  I am aware of this, but I'm not convinced it does what I want, it
>  seems overkill for it, also it is very immature.

True on all counts...

>  This faking (with an italic) is what I'm trying.

... and I think it would be very useful to be able to use arbitrary
italic roman and greek fonts for the symbols used in maths. Maths
symbols don't need excessive characterisation between fonts. (I.e.,
the symbols in Cambria Math or STIX would both suite a wide variety of
fonts.)

So I'd quite like to add to unicode-math what you've done with your
example here.

>  Quite more than that: we both belong to the same department at the
>  same university.

So are we going to meet up for coffee or not? :)

Will


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