[XeTeX] problems with fontspec and german sharp s ligature

[Yves Codet]

Hello Niels.

Le 9 avr. 08 à 05:05, Niels Provos a écrit :

> Only if you have a keyboard with an ß character.  On a US keyboard, I
> will have to live with "s.

Like Rembrandt wrote, you can get the characters you need with the US  
extended keyboard. You can see it thanks to the "Keyboard  
Visualiser" (or something like that; I'm guessing the name, since my  
system is in French). Go to "System Preferences", "International",  
"Input Menu", check the box in front of "Keyboard Visualiser". You  
can now select it under the small flag up and right of your screen.

>> I tried Polyglossia, but unfortunately, it no longer recognizes my  
>> umlauts:
>
>    "a is converted into ''a instead of ä
>
> etc.   However, babel seems to work fine, even if some of the
> hyphenations look incorrect.

It's because Polyglossia expects "pure" Unicode. When it sees "a it  
doesn't interpret it. There were issues with some languages in Babel,  
that's why several members of this list wished to see it replaced.  
But as long as it's not your case, I suppose you can stay with Babel.

Maybe your hyphenations correspond to the old spelling. Try (German  
users will correct me if I'm wrong):

	\usepackage[ngermanb]{babel}

Best wishes,

Yves