[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

[Andy Lin]

lshort needs to be updated, not just because it's missing sections on
Unicode and XeTeX. It's also working under the assumption that people
will *need* to use the command line in order to process a document.
This should be a concern to anyone who's looked at it recently.

And while lshort is a very important document, I'm not convinced that
it's necessarily the right place to go into a detailed explanation
about XeTeX or Unicode. Considering the usage that lshort assumes
(math), XeTeX and Unicode introduce relatively little improvement (and
indeed, even with Unicode math support, I can see reasons why you'd
stay with LaTeX for the time being).

The attractiveness to using LaTeX to exchange documents (in the past,
and to a large extent, even now) is that you can be sure that the
source file can be read by your computer, even if you don't have the
same fonts or language support (EOL and codepage issues aside). XeTeX
introduces many stumbling blocks to this portability, even as it
solves others. Although the switch to Unicode ensures that you don't
run into codepage problems, you now have problems with individual
computer not being able to display certain scripts because the system
fonts don't support it. And although OpenType fonts provide you with
real small caps and fancy contextual alternates, you can only compile
the document on another computer if it also has the fonts you use.
These are all things which I think are outside of the scope of lshort
and concern a different audience (people who need multilingual
support, OpenType feature support, not to mention people who should
probably be using ConTeXT instead).

A short introduction to XeTeX should include discussion of editors,
because not all popular editors support Unicode. TeXworks and TeXmaker
are very good candidates for inclusion because they're easy to use and
are cross-platform. (Regarding Windows UI design, the concept of
separated parent-child windows is not at all unique to TeXworks, just
look at the various incarnations of Windows/MSN Messenger. It even
commits the crime of a program staying active even though you've
closed all windows: you can only quit it from the notification area
icon.)

I honestly think that XeTeX is LaTeX's best bet of going mainstream.
And by that, I mean, actually convert some university students from
using Microsoft Word. The new headaches it introduces into LaTeX are
nothing new in Microsoft Word, and what it gives them is a way to
interact with a document that they last saw (if ever) with WordPerfect
and its Reveal Codes feature. I've described it as HTML+CSS for
documents and strangely enough, it actually attracts some people.

I've run several LaTeX workshops for the linguistics department at my
university, and most people go straight back to Word because seeing
\emph{} makes them physically uncomfortable. The few that stay with
it, they need a little guidance and a lot of information. This is
where a document like an xshort would come in.

BTW, I don't see any benefit to telling people how to enter characters
in their documents. Chances are, if they need them, they know how to
get them. The more important thing is to re-educate those who're
entering characters *the wrong way*, e.g. using a symbol font for
Greek letters.

A few suggestions
-I would like to see mention of RTL and CJK support in the XeTeX
section, the is the main reason why I use XeTeX over (pdf)LaTeX. I'd
also change "in the past" to "in regular LaTeX" or something similar.
A current user of LaTeX is unlikely to read lshort.
-I don't think the section on old style numerals or historical
ligatures is necessary, but I would keep the Polish ligature example.
-under "How do I get OpenType fonts", I would add "OpenType fonts are
included with Windows (XP or newer), and all versions of OS X."
-I would also mention AAT fonts for OS X

The tl;dr version: I agree with the brevity of the current proposed
extension to lshort, but not some of its contents. I do like that it
links to an external resource rather than try to cover a range of
topics which readers of lshort may not be interested in.

-Andy