[Fontinst] LIG plus kerning

[Ulrich Dirr]

fontinst-bounces at tug.org wrote:

>  > > > That's bad news. So I've to find a 'nice' looking char for direct
input 
>  > > > (the ANSI dec133 is already used by another glyph). And a macro
solution
>  > > > like \dots would make the input file unreadable because 'ellipsis'
is used
>  > > > heavily.
> 
> I am not so sure about that.  I just wrote the following macro in plain
tex, and it 
> works so well that I think I will use it from now on.
> 
> \def\. #1 #2{$\ldots$}
> 
> This one assumes that the dots will be input as . . .
> 
> All it needs is the backslash in front, which will create a difficulty if
you are 
> using a language with the dot-over accent, but even that could be got
around.  I 
> rarely run into that accent outside of the Turkish \.{I}stanbul.
> 
> The input:
> 
> This is \. . . an ellipsis macro
> 
> Produces just what you want.  The macro could even be generalised to
produce a 
> 
> fourdot sequence for ellipsis at end of sentence.  If you prever to see
your 
> ellipses as ... that can be done too.
> 
> Pierre MacKay

Sorry for the delayed answer. Yes, this is a working macro solution. This
was also what I've done when I wrote that I'm using translation tables for
input and output of my editor. It has the advantage that I can control the
kerning via macro (re-)definition.

Nevertheless, besides having always in mind that the accent macro is
redefined, the ellipsis needs different handling with different fonts. So I
would have liked a solution which is implemented on the font side ...

Ulrich Dirr