[XeTeX] Whitespace in input

[Zdenek Wagner]

2011/11/16 Ross Moore <ross.moore at mq.edu.au>:
>
> On 16/11/2011, at 9:45 AM, Zdenek Wagner wrote:
>
>> 2011/11/15 Ross Moore <ross.moore at mq.edu.au>:
>
>>>>> What if you really want the Ux00A0 character to be in the PDF?
>>>>> That is, when you copy/paste from the PDF, you want that character
>>>>> to come along for the ride.
>>>>>
>>>>> From the typographical point of view it is the worst of all possible
>>>> methods. If you really wish it,
>
> Maybe you misunderstood what I meant here.
>
> I'm not saying that you might want Ux00A0 for *every* place
> where there is a word-breaking space.
> Just that there may be individual instance(s) where you have
> a reason to want it.
>
> Just like any other Unicode character, if you want it then
> you should be able to put it in there.

You ARE able to do it. Choose a font with that glyph, set \catcode to
11 or 12 and that's it. What else do you wish to do?

> That's what XeTeX currently does (with the TeX-wise familiar
> ASCII exceptions) for any code-point supported by the
> chosen font.
>
>>>
>>> The *really wish it* is the choice of the author, not the
>>> software.
>>>
>>>> then do not use TeX but M$ Word or
>>>> OpenOffice. M$ Word automatically inserts nonbreakable spaces at some
>>>> points in the text written in Czech. As far as grammer is concerned,
>>>> it is correct. However, U+00a0 is fixed width. If you look at the
>>>> output, the nonbreakable spaces are too wide on some lines and too
>>>> thin on other lines. I cannot imagine anything uglier.
>>>
>>> I do not disagree with you that this could be ugly.
>>> But that is not the point.
>>>
>>> If you want superior aesthetic typesetting, with nice choices
>>> for hyphenation, then don't use Ux00A0. Of course!
>>>
>>>
>>> Whatever the reason for wanting to use this character, there
>>> should be a straight-forward way to do it.
>>> Using the character itself is:
>>>  a.  the most understandable
>>>  b.  currently works
>>>  c.  requires no special explanation.
>>>
>> These are reasons why people might wish it in the source files, not in PDF.
>
> Yes. In the source, to have the occasional such character included
> within the PDF, for whatever reason appropriate to the material
> being typeset -- whether verbatim, or not.
>
>>
>> If you wish to take a [part of] PDF and include it in another PDF as
>> is, you can take the PDF directly without the need of grabbing the
>> text. If you are interested in the text that will be retypeset, you
>> have to verify a lot of other things.
>
> How is any of this relevant to the current discussion?
>
It was you who came with the argument that you wish to have
nonbreakable spaces when copying the text from PDF.

>> If the text contained hyphenated
>> words, you have to join the parts manually. You will have a lot of
>> other work and the time saved by U+00a0 will be negligible. There are
>> tools that may help you to insert nonbreakable spaces. I have even my
>> own special tools written in perl to handle one class of input files
>> that are really plain texts and the result is (almost) correctly
>> marked LaTeX source.
>
> All well and good.
> But how is that relevant to anything I said?
>
See above.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Zdeněk Wagner
>>>> http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
>>>> http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>        Ross
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ross Moore                                       ross.moore at mq.edu.au
> Mathematics Department                           office: E7A-419
> Macquarie University                             tel: +61 (0)2 9850 8955
> Sydney, Australia  2109                          fax: +61 (0)2 9850 8114
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-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz