[XeTeX] buggy hyphenation in XeTeX?

Jonathan Kew jonathan_kew at sil.org
Sat Apr 14 19:42:41 CEST 2007


On 14 Apr 2007, at 1:34 pm, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:

> Jonathan Kew wrote:
>> On 14 Apr 2007, at 12:49 am, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:
>>
>>> I'm using xetex-0.995 (probably from the SVN directory) and I don't
>>> know
>>> whether I have found a bug with hyphenation. See the following
>>> document:
>>>
>>> \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,draft]{article}
>>> \usepackage[spanish]{babel}
>>> \usepackage{fontspec}
>>> \setromanfont{Old Standard}
>>> \righthyphenmin=2\lefthyphenmin=2
>>> \begin{document}
>>> \begin{quotation}
>>> Martin Heidegger, filósofo alemán, se sitúa ante nosotros como
>>> pensador que declaró el final de la metafísica. Denunció el  
>>> olvido del
>>> ser y apuntó a un nuevo comienzo, más atrás de los orígenes (aunque
>>> esto no se haya de entender en sentido cronológico). Se trata de un
>>> filósofo que puso de relieve la centralidad de la
>>> \end{quotation}
>>> \end{document}
>>
>> Running your example with my current development version
>> (post-0.996), I get hyphenation of "co-mo".
>
> Thanks for your answer, Jonathan. Where can I get your current
> development version? (Just in case everything else fails, cause I have
> weird hyphenations with ancient Greek and I have to submit the book to
> its author before Monday morning.)

That would be the code in our subversion repository scripts.sil.org  
(see the XeTeX for Linux page, for example). It's not always as  
stable as the released version (should be), though; depends what sort  
of experimental stuff is going on. I'd recommend the 0.996 release as  
your best option.

>
>> One thing to consider is that by default, TeX prefers to avoid
>> hyphenation if possible, so even if there's a potential hyphenation
>> point, it may not be used if the lines can be broken reasonably well
>> without it. To make hyphenation much more likely (on a temporary
>> basis), you could try adding
>>
>>    \pretolerance = -1 % always run the hyphenation pass
>>    \hyphenpenalty = -1000 % breaks at hyphenation points are highly
>> desirable
>>
>> Running your sample with these settings, I get hyphenation on *every*
>> line! :)
>
> I get the same results as before.

In that case, I suspect something is wrong with the hyphenation  
patterns or language configuration or something like that. To look  
into this, it would be helpful to see the .log of your job, as well  
as the .log from the creation of the xelatex.fmt file. However, I  
think trying your file with a standard TL2007 installation is  
probably a better and quicker way forward.

JK




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