[XeTeX] Mac OS X Savoye

[Stephen Moye]

On Nov 27, 2005, at 6:05 PM, Mark Moll wrote:

>
> 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

I like that, and actually tried it, alas, to no effect. But it does  
indicate that it seems natural thing to do -- at least for me ;>}

SGM