[XeTeX] More Math Fonts?

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 25 août 04, à 11:09, Jonathan Kew a écrit :

> Partly, we're facing the question of where to expend effort.... would 
> it be more worthwhile to keep enhancing the support of legacy fonts 
> and non-standard encodings, or to put the resources into developing 
> standards-based, Unicode-compliant fonts and the necessary supporting 
> macros, etc.?

That depends probably on the targeted audience: if emphasis is on 
attracting OS X users to TeX, then the latter seems more important; if 
emphasis is on attracting TeX users to the OS X platform, then the 
former seems more important. Ross has already done a lot of work 
towards adding LaTeX compatibility to XeTeX. (However, the number of 
TeX variants out there would make total compatibility a nightmare, I 
guess.)

For example, at the moment I'm using XeTeX for most administrative or 
personal letters, and there I have fun experimenting with fonts, 
layouts, etc.; but as soon as I turn to scientific work (i.e. my job), 
requiring intensive maths, use of journal or editor macros, etc., then 
I must go back to standard (La)TeX.

Similarly, I started my TeX experience in late 1991 with Textures, and 
enjoyed it a lot for several years (without it I would probably have 
stuck to MacWrite II, that I was using at the time, and then moved on 
to MacWrite Pro to Word to Open Office). I was experimenting with 
fonts, graphics inclusion, and had fun with it. But as soon as I got 
more experienced as a scientist, and needed to collaborate with people, 
edit proceedings, etc., then I decided to switch to the more standard 
OzTeX (which I also enjoyed a lot).

Then came TeXShop (and later iTeXMac), adding the polish of a 
Textures-like Quartz interface to the standard teTeX-TeXLive. Except 
for one thing: fonts. I like to think of XeTeX as bringing us the best 
of both worlds, eventually.

Bruno Voisin