[XeTeX] fontspec and a single font for multiple scripts

Khaled Hosny khaledhosny at eglug.org
Wed Aug 18 13:47:33 CEST 2010


On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 01:31:18PM +0200, Volker Haas wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> is it possible to use a single font for multiple scripts with
> fontspec without doing any font switching or altering font features?

No, you have to define operate font instance with appropriate option for
each script.

> The below sample code fails (it renders, but either bengali, latin
> or arabic is not rendered correctly):
> 
> \documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setmainfont[Script=Bengali,Script=Latin,Script=Arabic]{FreeSerif}
> \begin{document}
> যুক্তব্যঞ্জন the 1. item العربية
> \end{document}

"Script" does not accept multiple arguments, so the above is the same as
just saying "Script=Arabic". Even if this worked, you still need to mark
each text to get proper hyphenation and directionality.

So, you have to define a new font family for each script, combine it
with hyphenation loading and switching, and/or direction setting. In
short, you should try polyglossia instead.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated. The fontspec manual and a web search
> weren't helpful so far.
> 
> On a side note: With the latest fontspec version (2.0c) the arabic
> script is used in the above example. When using fontspec 1.18 from
> texlive 2009 bengali is used.

It is likely related on how options are parsed.

Regards,
 Khaled

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer


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