[XeTeX] Converting math symbols via xetex

[Wilfred van Rooijen]

Hi,

Note the following: in latex, setting of mathematical material is __substantially__ different from "normal" text. For example, the Greek letter phi can be entered as φ into xelatex, but is then not treated as a 'special mathematical' symbol. Math symbols are grouped into several categories: ordinary symbols, binary symbols, relationship symbols, punctuation marks, and operator symbols. The spacing between symbols is determined by the classes to which they belong, so that $a + b$ has a spacing between the symbols determined by math rules, and thus different from, say, \emph{a} + \emph{b}. Also, $\phi$ is different from φ in many ways for latex - it is treated as a math symbol of class Ordinary, or as a nothing-special-Greek-Letter. The layout of the document will be different.

Furthermore, usually a special font is used to typeset math material to make it visually sufficiently different from "running text". Also there are many specialized maths symbols available in latex which may not be commonly found in an OTF font. In my documents I am moving to xelatex as far as I can, but I still use "old fashioned" math material. Take a look at the mathspec package, a special package to set math materials with OTF and xelatex.

Regards,
Wilfred

--- On Wed, 1/9/10, Neil <neil.ernst at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Neil <neil.ernst at gmail.com>
> Subject: [XeTeX] Converting math symbols via xetex
> To: xetex at tug.org
> Date: Wednesday, 1 September, 2010, 5:11 AM
> Sorry if this is a common question,
> I've searched high and low for the answer.
> 
> I am writing a scientific paper with math terminology. It
> would be
> nice to directly enter some math symbols directly into the
> text-editor. For example, the characters
> φ (lower case phi aka $\phi$)
> or
> ¬ (negation aka $\neg$)
> 
> It makes it clearer to read the source, I find.
> 
> My text file is UTF-8. If I run xelatex on my Mac 10.6, the
> resulting
> pdf does show the φ character, but not the ¬ character. I
> cannot
> understand why. My feeling is that it has something to do
> with
> font-mapping.  I've included my document header for
> reference.
> 
> thanks for any help.
> 
> XeTeX 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009)
> kpathsea version 5.0.0
> Copyright 2009 SIL International and Jonathan Kew.
> There is NO warranty.  Redistribution of this software
> is
> covered by the terms of both the XeTeX copyright and
> the Lesser GNU General Public License.
> For more information about these matters, see the file
> named COPYING and the XeTeX source.
> Primary author of XeTeX: Jonathan Kew.
> Compiled with ICU version 3.8.1 [with modifications for
> XeTeX]
> Compiled with zlib version 1.2.3; using 1.2.3
> Compiled with FreeType2 version 2.3.9; using 2.3.9
> Using Mac OS X Carbon, Cocoa & QuickTime frameworks
> 
> 
> %!TEX TS-program = xelatex
> %!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
> \documentclass{llncs}
> \usepackage{todonotes}
> \usepackage[no-math]{fontspec}
> \usepackage{xunicode}
> \usepackage{xltxtra}
> \setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Times}
> %\usepackage{amsthm}
> \usepackage{color}
> \usepackage{booktabs}
> 
> \usepackage{graphicx}
> \newcommand{\slbl}[1]{\textbf{\textsf{#1}}}
> \usepackage{amsmath}%,amssymb}
> \usepackage{algpseudocode}
> \usepackage{algorithm}%,algorithmic-fix}
> \usepackage[pdfstartview=FitH,xetex,bookmarksopenlevel=3,bookmarks=true]{hyperref}
> %pdfpagescrop={92 112 523 778},
> 
> \begin{document}
> 
> 
> 
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