[XeTeX] Tamil unicode character not displaying correctly

Zdenek Wagner zdenek.wagner at gmail.com
Wed Feb 26 17:34:09 CET 2014


2014-02-26 17:17 GMT+01:00 dsv <ojdfpiv at gmail.com>:
> Thanks Zdenek. I am using the same font in Ubuntu and Windows. It is called
> "Lohit Tamil". Both Ubuntu and Cygwin seem to be running the same version of
> xetex - 3.1415926. The sub-version seems a little different. However, I
> don't know how to ensure that the same exact version of xelatex is running
> on both Cygwin and Ubuntu. I used the setup manager on Cygwin which offers
> only one version; on Ubuntu I used the Synaptic package manager.
>
3.1415926 is version of TeX, not XeTeX. The TeX version converges to
\pi. Whenever D. E. Knuth fixes a bug, another digit is added. The
number after the hyphen denotes the version of the engine. You can
immediatelly see in the parenthesis, that in Cygwin you use the latest
official version from TeX Live 2013 while in Ubuntu you use a very old
version from TeX Live 2009. Harfbuzz was added in 2013 so it is
natural that it is not mentioned in that old version. You should first
upgrade your TeX in Ubuntu. If new deb packages are not available, it
is possible to install TeX Live directly from www.tug.org and you can
always keep it up-to-date no matter whether it is supplied in Ubuntu
or not. No one is going to fix bugs in 5 years old XeTeX.

>  I am appending below the output of "xelatex -version" from both operating
> systems. One thing is curious, though. While on Cygwin, it says, "compiled
> with Harfbuzz version 0.9.17, there is no mention of Harfbuzz on Ubuntu.
>
> === xelatex -version on Cygwin:
> XeTeX 3.1415926-2.5-0.9999.3-2013053010 (TeX Live 2013/Cygwin)
> kpathsea version 6.1.1
> Copyright 2013 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 51.1; using 51.2
> Compiled with zlib version 1.2.8; using 1.2.8
> Compiled with FreeType2 version 2.4.12; using 2.4.12
> Compiled with Graphite2 version 1.2.1; using 1.2.3
> Compiled with HarfBuzz version 0.9.17; using 0.9.25
> Compiled with fontconfig version 2.10.1; using 2.10.93
> Compiled with libpng version 1.5.14; using 1.5.14
> Compiled with poppler version 0.20.5
>
> === xelatex -version on Ubuntu
> XeTeX 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
> 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 1.2.3.4; using 1.2.3.4
> Compiled with FreeType2 version 2.4.8; using 2.4.8
> Compiled with fontconfig version 2.8.0; using 2.8.0
> Compiled with libpng version 1.2.46; using 1.2.46
> Compiled with poppler version 0.18.2
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 8:18 PM, Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> 2014-02-22 9:31 GMT+01:00 dsv <ojdfpiv at gmail.com>:
>> > I am using xelatex on Ubuntu (xubuntu, actually) linux to typeset a
>> > Tamil
>> > document. Most characters display correctly in the pdf generated by
>> > xelatex.
>> > The unicode consonant ஶ displays okay, but when combined with vowels,
>> > the
>> > display screws up. E.g. when combined with the vowel இ, I am supposed to
>> > get
>> > ஶி ; however, the xelatex pdf output shows ஶ◌ி ; i.e. a spurious dotted
>> > circle appears between the consonant and the vowel. The same combined
>> > character displays fine on a unicode compatible editor such as gedit.
>> > All
>> > consonants other than ஶ combine correctly with vowels. Moreover, I don't
>> > see
>> > the problem in the pdf output of xelatex on a Windows machine with
>> > Cygwin.
>> > There xelatex seems to do fine. It's only on *buntu linux that I see a
>> > problem. Any help or bug fixes are appreciated.
>> >
>> Can you try to remove the font from Ubuntu and install exactly the
>> same font used in Windows? Maybe you do not have the same version. If
>> it helps, the font in Ubuntu is not correct. If it does not help, it
>> is probably a bug in Harfbuzz. And of course, I hope you have the same
>> version of xetex on both platforms (TeX Live 2012 used ICU, TeX Live
>> 2013 uses Harfbuzz, gedit probably uses pango but I am not sure).
>>
>> > The latex header that I use is
>> >
>> > \documentclass [a4paper] {article}
>> > \usepackage {fontspec}
>> > \usepackage {xunicode}
>> > \setmainfont[Script=Tamil]{Lohit Tamil}
>> > \begin {document}
>> > ...
>> > ...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Zdeněk Wagner
>> http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
>> http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
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-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz




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