[XeTeX] XeTeX vertical text layout support (for Linux & win32 users)

[Jjgod Jiang]

2006/6/19, Jonathan Kew <jonathan_kew at sil.org>:
>
> Yuck! Yes, I see the same result with HanWangMingMedium. Note,
> however, that this font doesn't support the OpenType 'vert' feature,
> nor any vertical metrics, so it's not surprising that xetex doesn't
> manage to do a good job with it. I suppose I should do something
> about this....
>
> I don't have the other two fonts you mention (yet), but I tried some
> other FZ... fonts that I have on Linux, and the results look OK.
> Note, though, that you need to include "script=hani" in the font
> declaration in order to specify the Han layout engine; without this,
> the 'vert' feature won't be applied, as it only exists within the Han
> script in the OT fonts.
>

Oops.. "AdobeSongStd-Light:vertical:script=hani" looks acceptable for
me now. (The font has the following features:

# otfinfo -f --script=hani /usr/share/fonts/OTF/AdobeSongStd-Light.otf
aalt    Access All Alternates
cpct    <unknown feature>
dlig    Discretionary Ligatures
fwid    Full Widths
halt    Alternate Half Widths
hwid    Half Widths
nalt    Alternate Annotation Forms
pwid    Proportional Widths
trad    Traditional Forms
vert    Vertical Writing
vhal    Alternate Vertical Half Metrics
vrt2    Vertical Alternates and Rotation)

But it's a little bit weird to see the punctations appear at the upper right
corner. It seems punctations sit in the upper right corner is a Japanese
tradition, in Chinese, it should sit in middle center.

http://scripts.sil.org/IWS-Chapter09 has some samples, although those
samples is some how dated, I'll ask some of my friends in Taiwan
for more recent pictures (and more definitive answers, since I'm a simplified
Chinese native speaker, vertical text rarely used in simplified Chinese form
now, book editors in Taiwan will be more familier with this stuff.)

And, of course, I think XeTeX works correctly as I expected, it should be the
problem of the font.

J.