[XeTeX] Conflict between xunicode and fontspec?

[Arthur Reutenauer]

> The first one is an unbreakable space and the second one is a normal
> space.

  I take it you really typed a no-break space in your input file; it's
not present in your e-mail, though.  I guess it has been transformed
into a regular space character by your e-mail agent (and the latin-1
characters have been converted to quoted-printable, too); next time you
want to show a sample, use an attached file.

  As for your questions, Jonathan explained why you get seemingly better
results by adding inputenc and fontenc: by complete chance, and mostly
thanks to the fonts you use, as well as some bargaining on the
encodings.  It will not, and I stress, *not* give better results in
general, and you shouldn't stick to it if you expect help on finer
typographic issues.

> Thanks for the pointer but, well, Babel has stuff like
> \AddThinSpaceBeforeFootnotes, \FrenchFootnotes, \ier and other
> commands I use so switching to polyglossia breaks a lot of things...

  Actually, you shouldn't see it that way: the biggest leap is from
(pdf)TeX to XeTeX, not from Babel to Polyglossia.  Of course, you could
continue using XeTeX mostly the same way you used TeX, but you would be
missing most of XeTeX's advantages if you did so, which is why you want
to use fontspec and other related packages.  But you should realize that
a part of fontspec's job is to do the same actions for XeLaTeX as do
inputenc and fontenc for traditional LaTeX, and you shouldn't think of
it as a complement to the latter packages, but really as a replacement
(after all, XeLaTeX without any package isn't really useful at all; just
compare the two attached files: they demonstrate how fontspec takes over
the task of inputenc + fontenc, and this is how you should understand
it).  Polyglossia is simply the next step, and even if for the moment it
lacks some commands for fine typography, those options can be added in
due time.  Just be patient!

	Arthur

> It depends on the sentence.  This one should be better for translations :)

  But it's not by Goscinny :-D  http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Odyssée_d'Astérix
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