[XeTeX] Mac OS X Savoye

[Mark Moll]

On Nov 27, 2005, at 2:38 PM, Jonathan Kew wrote:

> On 27 Nov 2005, at 10:02 pm, Stephen Moye wrote:
>
>> There is an interesting query on comp.text.tex.  It seems that the  
>> OS X font 'Savoye LET Plain:1.0' has a colon in it and this is not  
>> allowing XeTeX to find the font:
>>
>> !Font \test=Savoye LET Plain:1 at 20.0pt not loadable: ATSUI font  
>> not found.
>>
>> I assume that the colon is getting in the way of how stylistic  
>> alternatives are chosen in XeTeX. No amount of cajoling seems to  
>> work for this font. Any suggestions?
>
> Ugh -- I've never seen an actual font name with a colon in it! (Or  
> period, I think.) Both of those may present problems.
>
> The "1.0" looks suspiciously like a version number, which shouldn't  
> normally be included in a font name; there's a separate field for  
> version information in the fonts. So (assuming this is indeed  
> version information, not really part of the actual name,  
> conceptually), one could argue that the font is incorrect.
>
> However, that doesn't solve the immediate problem. I can't think of  
> any way you'd currently be able to get XeTeX to load this font; it  
> regards a colon as terminating the name and anything following as  
> being feature specifications. I suppose I could consider ways of  
> working around this. A couple of possibilities occur to me offhand:
>
> * allow the characters recognized when parsing a font descriptor  
> into name and features to be set by the user within the document:
>     \XeTeXfontfeaturedelimiter = <char-number>	[default is ":"]
>     \XeTeXfontstyledelimiter = <char-number>	[default is "/"]
>
> * provide a \XeTeXfont command that splits things up into separate  
> arguments with keywords identifying the pieces, e.g,
>     \XeTeXfont\myfontid = "Font name" style "B" features  
> "feature=setting;..." at 12pt
>
> Here, the "font name" would be used directly, without any parsing  
> for style/feature information.
>
> However, I'm not promising this right now.... just thinking aloud.  
> Suggestions are welcome.

Wouldn't it be easier to introduce an `escape' character (such as ` 
\') to use special characters like `:'? One could then write:

\test=Savoye LET Plain\:1 at 20.0pt

-- 
Mark