[XeTeX] Syriac Script

[Will Robertson]

18/10/2005, 9pm - Malte Rosenau wrote:


> I've recently discovered that XeTeX does not properly work with my  
> syriac
> OpenType fonts (Meltho fonts). In the following example the contextual
> ligatures won't show up:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{fontspec,xunicode}
> \begin{document}
> \fontspec[Script=Syriac]{Estrangelo Edessa}
> ???
> \end{document}
>
> Is this a result of OS X's incomplete support for syriac? Any  
> chance to make this work in XeTeX?
>

Hi Malte,

Wow, I didn't know anyone was using the Script feature in fontspec :)
This isn't just a flippant remark: the code has been hardly tested in  
this area due to my lack of knowledge and resources.

However, I suspect the problem is more low-level than my package. If  
you want to try the same thing in Plain XeTeX, you should find it  
still doesn't work:

   \font\1="Estrangelo Edessa:script=syrc"
   \1 ???

(If not, let me know and I'll hang my head in shame.)

The problem, I believe, is that XeTeX uses an open source OpenType  
font renderer ("ICU", <http://icu.sourceforge.net/>), and that almost  
all of the language and script-specific "things" haven't been linked  
up with the OT features they're supposed to turn on automatically.

On the bright side, if you're able and so inclined, you can add the  
support yourself; Jonathan Kew has said before (if I recall  
correctly) that it's not very hard, just tedious work for the  
hundreds of languages and scripts.

Anyway, you should be able to get by with turning the contextual  
ligatures on manually:

   \fontspec[Script=Syriac, Ligatures=Contextual]{Estrangelo Edessa}
   ???

I'm not actually sure if the Script assignment above is necessary.  
Like I said, I'm a rank amateur at multi-lingual typesetting.

I hope this can help,

Will