[OS X TeX] Re: using xeTex

[Manuel Souto Pico]

2007/2/13, Jonathan Kew <jonathan_kew at sil.org>:
> On 13 Feb 2007, at 9:53 am, Manuel Souto Pico wrote:
>
> > Thanks Jonathan!
>
> You're welcome! :)
>
> > I would like to ask for something else. I see that some of my
> > knowlodge about latex (acquired with a couple of books about latex and
> > searching the Web) is useless if I use xelatex. I'm a bit taken aback
> > by this. Could you recommend any (preferably free) resource about
> > xelatex or the differences with latex. I prefer spending a bit of time
> > reading beforehand (although I suppose I will know many things
> > already) instead of searching and/or asking every time I run into a
> > problem. I'll be grateful for any suggestion.
>
> Unfortunately, there is very limited documentation as yet; I hope
> this will eventually improve, but resources are pretty scarce. If I
> had more than a fraction of my time available to give to this
> project, perhaps progress could be a little quicker! A couple of
> people have expressed an interest in writing documentation, so that
> may help.
>
> For now, things you should be aware of include:
>
> * Will's excellent documentation for fontspec, the primary way of
> handling fonts in xelatex
> * also his "quick reference" guide to xetex commands
>    - these are included in current TeXLive-based packages
>    - or you can find the latest materials online in directories under
>      <http://scripts.sil.org/svn-view/xetex/TRUNK/texmf/doc/>
>
> * XeTeX-notes, and various (mostly "plain"-based) sample files
> included in the Documentation and Sample Files archive available from
> <http://scripts.sil.org/xetex_download>. These are not all completely
> up-to-date, but aim to demonstrate the various xetex extensions.
>
> * The xetex mailing list (and its archives), as many questions have
> been answered there:
>      <http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex>

Thanks Jonathan. I'll have a thorough look at those as soon as I can.
>
> Be aware that the vast majority of what you've learned about LaTeX
> applies unchanged to xelatex. Essentially everything to do with
> document structure, page layout, etc, is the same. The key
> differences are in the area of fonts, character encodings, and
> "special character" support, and once you understand how this stuff
> works, it's generally far simpler. You just need to get LaTeX's
> legacy packages like inputenc and fontenc out of the way, and allow
> the Unicode text through from input file to output font. And choose
> fonts (via fontspec) that support the Unicode characters you need in
> your documents.
>
> JK
>
>
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>

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