[XeTeX] Re: [MacTeX] so, what to do about fonts? (was XeTeX)

[Jonathan Kew]

>> XeTeX isn't attempting to "compete" in the standard TeX world. I hope 
>> it will be able to process standard documents using standard fonts 
>> correctly (and clearly it's not there yet!), it will never be as 
>> efficient as pdfTeX for that purpose. But its purpose is to provide a 
>> high-end typesetting tool that works easily with Unicode and AAT 
>> fonts, and in particular with complex scripts. To achieve that, it 
>> sacrifices platform independence and source document portability. And 
>> for many users, that's a price not worth paying, I realize that.
>
> Which brings us back to the original question:
>
> What's the best way to have Mac fonts like Hoefler Text, Gill Sans, 
> etc. work "out of the box" for Mac OS X TeX users?

The answer may depend partly on what you mean by "work"; the basic 
ability to access one default glyph for each supported character, or 
the ability to make use of the potentially complex AAT behavior in some 
of the fonts? "Work" like they work in Word, or "work" like they work 
in TextEdit?

For me, having an interest in complex scripts (and not wishing to 
reimplement all the behavior of each AAT font using OTPs, convert), the 
AAT support is crucial. Others may view this very differently.

Jonathan

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