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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Peter Flynn wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:5dc1e754-bbe6-9738-7036-ed1475197137@silmaril.ie">
<br>
On 07/08/2020 10:30, Tianyi Chen wrote:
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<blockquote type="cite">Hi! this is Tianyi, and I am really sorry
to bother you, but I really need some help.
<br>
<br>
Recently, I was trying to learn TeX and reading "The TeXbook”. I
am confused reading chapter4 "Fonts of Type”, the author did a
really good job teaching switching one font from another, but
when I was trying to explore more fonts, there are two problems
cannot be solved by myself.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Are you quite sure it's TeX you want to learn and not LaTeX?
<br>
Plain TeX on its own is very low-level and usually of interest
<br>
mainly to computer scientists and typographic programmers.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Peter is well aware that I will disagree with this statement, and I
do. If you want to be in control, and to understand everything that
is going on, but are willing to restrict yourself to fonts that have
been designed for, or converted for use with, Knuthian TeX, then use
Plain TeX. If you want to be in control, and to understand
everything that is going on, and if you want to be able to use fonts
in Truetype (TTF), Opentype (OTF) formats and so on, then use Plain
XeTeX. If you are happy to use others' work, then use XeLaTeX, but
you will have to accept that as a result you will probably (a) <i>never</i>
fully understand what is going on "under the bonnet", and (b) you
may find it difficult (if not impossible) to coerce XeLaTeX into
doing exactly what you want. So if the results with XeLaTeX are
what you want, then be happy; if they are not, then you would
probably have done better to use Plain XeTeX in the first place.<br>
<br>
TeX : basic, restricted to "designed for, or converted for use
with, TeX" fonts.<br>
LaTeX : does more, but you cede control and become reliant on the
work of others. Possibly allows access to more fonts, but I never
use it because of its "nanny state" design.<br>
XeTeX : does everything <i>I</i> need, and can use any font I want
it to.<br>
XeLaTeX : Never needed it, but while it will do more "out of the
box", it does so at the cost of loss of control and the difficulty
of understanding, and using, other people's work.<br>
<br>
<i>Philip Taylor</i><br>
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