[XeTeX] Newbie's XeTeX questions

[Zdenek Wagner]

Hi,

to put it simply, XeTeX is just TeX but it works internally in Unicode,
accepts the source files in UTF-8 (BOM is accepted but is not mandatory)
and can use TrueType and OpenType fonts installed in the operating system.
This means that the \font primitive has other functionality. It is not
necessary to know the details from the very beginning but depending on what
you want to use, whether XeTeX or XeLaTeX, you have to learn the basics of
plain TeX or LaTeX and the basics of language and font selection (packages
polyglossia and fontspec in case of XeLaTeX). These packages are quite
large, if you choose XeLaTeX, start with simple examples and do not read
the whole manual, return to it later after gaining some experience.


Zdeněk Wagner
http://ttsm.icpf.cas.cz/team/wagner.shtml
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz

2017-11-29 12:02 GMT+01:00 Elof Ng <elof.huang at runbox.com>:

> In the document named "XETEX, the Multilingual Lion: TEX meets Unicode and
> smart font technologies", Kew mentioned the e-TEX’s typesetting engine,
> saying XeTeX is in fact based on it, but I found nothing about the e-TEX.
>
> Is it same as PlainTeX?
>
> I have briefly read the XeTeX Reference guid, Companion, they just
> introduce the topics related to the font, what about the others?
>
> Is XeTeX composed same as PlainTeX?
>
> Do I have to learn TeX first?
>
>
>
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