[XeTeX] unicode-math package (Was re. ... and \UnicodeMathSymbol command)

[Joel C. Salomon]

Nicolas Vaughan wrote:
> I haven't been able to find information on the unicode-math package.
> What's it for exactly?

Recent versions of Unicode (since 4.0, IIRC) include in Plane 1 special
mathematical alphabets; see <http://tinyurl.com/unicode-math-alpha>.
Some fonts include all these characters, along with special kerning
tables designed for mathematical use.  The unicode-math package allows
these fonts to be used with XɘTeX, negating the need for special metrics
files &c.  The package is still in an early pre-release stage, and Will
is too busy to give it much time now, but it’s already pretty usable.

At present time, however, there are exactly *two* fonts that implement
the Unicode Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols along with the necessary
OpenType tables:  Microsoft’s Cambria Math (available with Office 2007)
and Apostolos Syropoulos’s Asana Math (on CTAN).

There are also several in-progress fonts.  Ross Mills of Tiro Typeworks
(who did most of the maths work for Cambria Math) is working on a font
he calls Maxwell; see <http://tiro.com/fonts.html>.  Johannes Küster of
typoma GmbH is working on Minion Math, a companion to Adobe’s Minion Pro
(Minion name used under license), Latin Modern Math and (along with
Hermann Zapf) a revision of Euler; see <http://typoma.com/en/fonts.html>
and <http://typoma.com/en/projects.html>.  Finally, the STIX Fonts
Project has been working on a Times-like maths set for a while; expect
them to be done any decade now, with the OpenType tables set to follow
not much more than a century later.

The development version of unicode-math can be downloaded from
<http://github.com/wspr/unicode-math/tree/master>; put unicode-math.sty,
unicode-math.tex, and unicode-math-add.tex somewhere XɘLaTeX can find
them, and experiment.

—Joel Salomon