[XeTeX] XeTeX and TeX documentation

[Joshua Grauman]

>>>> As a side note, I'd like to be able to change the hyphenation (correct
>>>> terminology?) for my document. I would like xetex to break up words
>>>> after
>>>> the maqqef and not just wrap by spaces. How would I go about this?
>>> 
>>> One way to achieve this, noting that maqqef is Unicode character U
>>> +05BE, would be to make this an "active character" and program it to
>>> insert a discretionary break after itself. Something like this:
>>>
>>>  \catcode"05BE = \active
>>>  \def^^^^05be{\char"05BE\discretionary{}{}{}}
>>> 
>>> (The use of uppercase "05BE" and lowercase "05be" here is deliberate
>>> and required!)
>>> 
>>> HTH,
>>> 
>>> JK
>> 
>> This code does not appear to work for either xetex or xelatex for me (Ie I
>> don't think it changes the output at all)... Am I missing something?
>
> It should allow breaks after maqqef -- but you'll only see a change if there 
> happens to be a case where such a break can improve the setting of a 
> paragraph, so it depends on the precise text/size/etc. With a bit of 
> experimentation, I found a setting where you can see the effect; try the 
> attached example, which sets the same text twice, with and without this 
> feature. In the second version, you should get a break after maqqef on the 
> second line.
>
> JK
>

I see that it does indeed work as expected in your example. I traced down 
the difference and my problem is that I am using "\leftskip = 0pt plus 
0.2\hsize" which was one of your suggestions for fixing overfull boxes. I 
was leaning towards using this for my final document (BHS is formatted 
this way). It never breaks after a maqqef in this case. Any further 
suggestions? Thanks again.

Josh