[XeTeX] patach furtivum in biblical hebrew

David Purton dcpurton at marshwiggle.net
Thu Sep 16 07:41:03 CEST 2010


Hi Carsten,

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 02:50:38PM +0100, Carsten Ziegert wrote:
> Thanks, David, that works well with the Contextuals in SBL Hebrew.
> 
> Actually, it does not work with Cardo, xelatex says:
> Package fontspec Warning: 
>     OpenType feature 'Contextuals=Alternate' (+calt) not available
>     for font "Cardo/ICU", 
>     with script 'Hebrew',
>     and language 'Default'.
> 
> So I conclude that it has to be defined in the font. On the other hand,
> why does it work with Ezra SIL "out of the box"? maybe someone can
> enlighten me:
> There are fonts using contextuals by default, fonts which require an
> option for fontspec and fonts which do not use contextuals at all. Is
> this right?

hum! You can tell whether a font supports contextual alternates with
otfinfo. e.g.,

    $ otfinfo --script=hebr -f SBL_Hbrw.ttf
    calt    Contextual Alternates
    ccmp    Glyph Composition/Decomposition
    jalt    Justification Alternates
    kern    Kerning
    mark    Mark Positioning
    rlig    Required Ligatures
    salt    Stylistic Alternates
    ss01    Stylistic Set 1

I don't have Cardo, but Ezra SIL only lists calt and ccmp. Perhaps it
uses some other method for its layout (guess)?

I confess that it is not clear to me which OTF features are
automatically enabled for a given font, and it was some time before I
realised I needed to turn on calt for SBL Hebrew. This does seem like a
feature that should be enabled by default though. And I only sort of
understand what jalt does (It is hard to find info on the net :( ) So I
don't know if I should enable this or not (or even if it is supported).

cheers

David

-- 
David Purton
dcpurton at marshwiggle.net
 
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to
strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
                                 2 Chronicles 16:9a
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