[XeTeX] Fwd: Re: [NTG-context] XeTeX fonts

[Jonathan Kew]

On 26 Oct 2004, at 2:59 pm, Adam Lindsay wrote:

> Hi Jonathan, all.
>
> A request from Hans that came from the fallout of someone trying to use
> MetaPost with XeConTeXt. Alternatively, if anyone working on the 
> XeLaTeX
> graphics drivers has any insights on keeping the font quotes intact but
> out of the way, we'd love to hear of your approaches!
>
> ---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
> From: Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl>
> To: mailing list for ConTeXt users <ntg-context at ntg.nl>
>
> Adam Lindsay wrote:
>
>>> ^^@:35: Extra tokens will be flushed.
>>> <to be read again>
>>>                   Hoefler
>>> l.35 defaultfont:=""Hoefler
>>>                            Text: Ligatures=Diphthongs"";
>
> hm, the "'s interfere here
>
> [snip --atl]
>
> How about introducing something
>
> \xfn{Hoefler Text: Ligatures=Diphthongs}
>
> instead of " ; I can even imagine that xetex supports { } as 
> alternative
> for " because:
>
> - it's not sensitive for " being active and such
> - it nicely moves through the tex machinery since tex knows how to deal
> with {}'s
>
> on the other hand, such {} can get lost when passing arguments, so 
> maybe
>
> () is a better alternative since it also fits in the ps/pdf way of
> handling args -)
>
>
>    (Hoefler Text: Ligatures=Diphthongs) at 10pt
>
> that we then can redefine at will. This will move through most tex
> macros without problems and adaptions.
>
> So, can you ask Jonathan if he is willing to accept () as an 
> alternative
> alongside "" ?
>
> Hans

Font names are scanned as file names by TeX. XeTeX modifies the 
filename-scanning rules to permit quoted file names (so names with 
spaces can be used, for example; can be handy for Mac files, and is 
essential for font names). Currently, it accepts either "double" or 
'single' quotes (the non-directional ASCII quotes, that is, not “curly 
quotes”). There's no mechanism for escaping the quote characters within 
the name, so a double-quoted name can't include a " character, and a 
single-quoted one can't include a '.

I'll add (....) as another "quoting" option for file and font names, if 
that's convenient; however, remember that in principle any of these 
characters could occur within a font/feature name, which is why I 
provided more than one option.

JK