["Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe@math.utah.edu>: Re: A question about encodings and afm files]

["Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe@csc-sun.math.utah.edu>]

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Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 16:07:50 -0700 (MST)
To: Rebecca and Rowland <rebecca@astrid.u-net.com>
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Subject: Re: A question about encodings and afm files
Message-ID: <CMM.0.91.0.881017670.beebe@plot79.math.utah.edu>

Rebecca and Rowland wrote:
>> ...
>> > I've been trying to work out how TeX decides which number to put in a dvi
>> > file when it comes across a character to output.
>> > 
>> > And I've not got all that far.  Is it the case that TeX's default behaviour
>> > is to output the same number to the dvi file as it met in the input file?
>>  

and Werner Lemberg reponded

>> If you mean that (after macro expansion) a character 'x' will be shipped
>> out as 'x', then the answer is yes, provided the character exists in the
>> .tfm file. And this not the default behaviour, but the only possibility,
>> since TeX only sees the .tfm file of the character's font.
>> ...

Except that some TeX implementations have added support for an input
character remapping to handle 8-bit character set code pages more
easily; I believe emTeX does this, and though the feature was
discussed for UNIX TeX, implementors eventually rejected the idea.
And of course, the Omega system of Yannis Haralambous and John Plaice
has significantly extended this idea, providing for `Omega translation
processes' (OTPs).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                  Tel: +1 801 581 5254                 -
- Center for Scientific Computing     FAX: +1 801 581 4148                 -
- University of Utah                  Internet e-mail: beebe@math.utah.edu -
- Department of Mathematics, 105 JWB                   beebe@acm.org       -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                                  beebe@ieee.org      -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA  URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe - 
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                  Tel: +1 801 581 5254                 -
- Center for Scientific Computing     FAX: +1 801 581 4148                 -
- University of Utah                  Internet e-mail: beebe@math.utah.edu -
- Department of Mathematics, 105 JWB                   beebe@acm.org       -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                                  beebe@ieee.org      -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA  URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe - 
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