[XeTeX] Where to start

[Jonathan Kew]

On 8 Feb 2008, at 11:50 am, Benjamin Koppe wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> I was told to switch to XeLaTeX, as this would be the new emerging
> star in typesetting. I study theology and therefor have to set Text in
> Greek, Hebrew (both the ancient version) and German (which is my
> mother tungue and works fine so far ;) ). So I looked throu the
> internet, but I find no place to start, like a rookie introduction.
>
> It seems to be similar to LaTeX, but in the examples I found so far
> there are several commands I do not know and I'm nt always sure which
> command does what etc...
>
> Where do all you guys have your knowlegde from? Do you read the source
> code?
>
> I have a Macbook with MacTex and TeXShop, I loaded them this week so I
> guess I have the most recent version...
> Is there anywhere in the MacTeX tree some docmentation I did not yet
> find? I mst confess, the whoe TeX trees were up to now very strange to
> me and though I was ever told there is documentation within it, I
> never found it... (nor did I seek to much, as for LaTeX there was
> enough good info in the internet...).

For the most part, it's like LaTeX. (All the same document structure/ 
markup/layout stuff.)

The differences are mainly in font selection (and character encoding  
-- use Unicode (UTF-8) everywhere, and don't load old LaTeX encoding  
packages like inputenc). Load the packages fontspec, xunicode, and  
xltxtra in your documents.

Most of what you'll need is covered by the excellent fontspec  
documentation; try "texdoc fontspec" in Terminal to locate it. Pay  
attention to the [Script=Hebrew] option, which you'll need when you  
load an OpenType font for Biblical Hebrew, such as Ezra SIL or  
SBLHebrew.

You might also benefit from the bidi package, and the newly-developed  
(or developing!) polyglossia. The main resource for information is  
currently this mailing list, where you'll find the authors of these  
various macro packages. Search the archives, and feel free to ask  
questions!

JK