[XeTeX] sting manipulation macros

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:11:40 -0700 schrieb Michiel Kamermans:


>> I would say you don't need a substring command but a method to set up a
>> virtual font which gets its glyphs from different real fonts. Then you
>> wouldn't have to setup your command for all sorts of environments. 

> Hmm, that might work. I am not very familiar with virtual fonts, or how
> to use them in TeX: would that allow me to change which real font is 
> being mapped to for certain glyphs or ranges "on the fly" in the 
> document, or would it be static once declared? If the first: excellent!
> (no more need for fontwrap then), if the second: not so excellent... I
> kind of rely on being able to change fonts constantly due to what the 
> fonts mean to readers (textbook lettering vs. handwritten lettering vs.
> caligraphy lettering, etc.).

Sorry I didn't mean to suggest that such a virtual font method already
exist in xetex (at least not for large fonts as you are trying to use).
I only meant that is what you are looking for. Currently I would say
your best bet is \XeTeXcharclass. It is certainly a bit of a problem
that you can't set \XeTeXinterchartoks  between a specific class and
"all others". But on the other side a normal document doesn't use 100
of classes so the work could probably be done in reasonable time with
some loops.

Btw there was a discussion last year about this:

"On cross-language font selection"
http://tug.org/mailman/htdig/xetex/2007-March/thread.html#6050


-- 
Ulrike Fischer