<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"><BR>
In a message dated 4/7/04 1:37:33 pm, prohaska@zib.de writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE CITE STYLE="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px" TYPE="CITE"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">A design decision made in xetex is to completely switch to unicode and<BR>
don't<BR>
support any old tex encoding. The changes in the encoding of quotes<BR>
(''),<BR>
dashes (--), special characters (\"a, \"o) etc. make it really hard to<BR>
switch.<BR>
You either have to recode all your input files or you can't use xetex.<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"><BR>
<BR>
I believe there are at least two fairly simple solutions to this problem. <BR>
<BR>
(1) You can use a Perl filter or shell script to convert your legacy files. This depends on the text editor you use, for BBEdit you could use something like:<BR>
<BR>
#!perl<BR>
#use utf8;<BR>
while(<>) <BR>
{<BR>
s/\\"a/ä/g;<BR>
s/\\"u/ü/g;<BR>
s/\\"o/ö/g;<BR>
s/--/–/g;<BR>
s/---/—/g;<BR>
s/\`/‘/g;<BR>
s/\`\`/“/g;<BR>
s/\'/’/g;<BR>
s/\'\'/”/g;<BR>
print "$_";<BR>
} <BR>
<BR>
If you use a Cocoa text editor such as SubEthaEdit you can do the same with the TextExtras service to put a conversion script into the menu bar of any Cocoa app.:<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
#! /bin/sh<BR>
#<BR>
# Converts legacy TeX abbreviations to UTF-8<BR>
#<BR>
# -- TextExtras User Script Info --<BR>
# %%%{TEName=Legacy to utf-8}%%%<BR>
# %%%{TEInput=Selection}%%%<BR>
# %%%{TEOutput=ReplaceSelection}%%%<BR>
# %%%{TEKeyEquivalent=@8}%%%<BR>
# %%%{TEArgument=-c}%%%<BR>
# Start with the standard input<BR>
INPUT=`cat -`<BR>
# Comment<BR>
OUTPUT=`echo "${INPUT}" | sed -e 's/\\"a/ä/g;s/\\"u/ü/g;s/\\"o/ö/g;s/--/–/g;s/---/—/g;s/\`/‘/g;s/\`\`/“/g;s/\'/’/g;s/\'\'/”/g;'`<BR>
echo -n "%%%{TESelection}%%%"<BR>
echo "${OUTPUT}"<BR>
echo -n "%%%{TESelection}%%%"<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
(2) You can redefine the commands \", \= etc. and turn quotation marks into active chararacters (which effectively makes them commands). Much of this has already been discussed on this list. For instance, to get ` and ' to produce styled quotation marks you can say:<BR>
%<BR>
\font\testfont="Zapfino" at 12pt<BR>
%<BR>
\catcode`\'=\active\def'{’}<BR>
\catcode`\`=\active\def`{‘}<BR>
%<BR>
\testfont<BR>
%<BR>
This is a `test'.<BR>
%<BR>
\bye <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
To get double quotes you need to do a test as can be seen on TeXbook page 395.<BR>
<BR>
I hope this might convince you that XeTeX is not inherently incompatible with legacy TeX abbreviations.<BR>
<BR>
Rather than urging Jonathan to implement this stuff in XeTeX directly one can just put it all into a style file tailored to one's needs. Much of this will also remain language and font dependent. I would much rather see Jonathan add margin kerning and some kind direct access to override Adobe's rather inadequate Opentype ligature mechanism.<BR>
<BR>
regards,<BR>
<BR>
Somadeva Vasudeva<BR>
Wolfson College<BR>
Oxford OX2 6UD<BR>
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