[XeTeX] Em-dash

[Wilfred van Rooijen]

Hi all,

> This is the same kind of issue as one
> of the earlier ones: the whole point of XeTeX is that one
> simply types what one wants into a Unicode editor (i.e., if
> you want an em-dash, you simply type an em-dash, and there
> is no need any more for TeX conventions like ---, \"a, etc.
> etc.).

But the problem is that there are not many keyboards which support all unicode characters :-)). My keyboard is a simple US keyboard, but sometimes I have to input French or German names. In those cases, it is very helpful that xelatex can still use the "old-fashioned" input. If not, I'd have to somehow input the character directly, and I am sure that there are ways to do that, but those will not increase readability of the source code :-))

Wilfred

> 
> Even if there is a way to work around the problem using a
> (new) TeX command, it may be easier to just open a
> Unicode-sensitive editor and do find-and-replace, turning
> all the --- into em-dashes. That is totally unambiguous and
> should not lead to any problems, I think.
> 
> RZ
> 
> On 30.04.10 16:16, José Carlos Santos wrote:
> > Hi all (yes, it's me again!):
> > 
> > If I compile this file:
> > 
> > \documentclass{article}
> > \pagestyle{empty}
> > \usepackage{fontspec}
> > \usepackage{xunicode}
> > \usepackage{xltxtra}
> > \begin{document}
> > ---
> > \end{document}
> > 
> > with XeLaTeX, then I get a PDF file which contains a
> single character, namely an em-dash. But if I add, say,
> \setmainfont{Arial} before \begin{document}, then what I get
> is ---. Why? Do I have to use \textemdash instead?
> 
> 
> 
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