[XeTeX] XeTeX release 0.84 available

[Jonathan Kew]

On 15 Jul 2004, at 9:43 am, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 14 juil. 04, à 17:52, Jonathan Kew a écrit :
>
>> Version 0.84 includes a fix in the OpenType font handling that should  
>> make fully-voweled Arabic text work without the words jumping around  
>> on the page! (Other fonts could potentially be affected, too.)
>>
>> It also includes new primitives that make it possible to query an  
>> OpenType font to discover the available layout feature tags and  
>> supported scripts/languages. There is no documentation of these at  
>> this point, but a new file in the Sample Files archive demonstrates  
>> their use. (These features are intended only for technically-inclined  
>> users anyway <grin>!)
>
> Hello,
>
> Giving a try at OpenType-info.tex, after defining \fontname as cmr10  
> (which I thought should have referred to  
> /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/fonts/otf/xetex/bluesky/cm/ 
> cmr10.otf), I get:
>
> This is XeTeXk, Version 3.14159-2.1-0.84 (Web2C 7.5.2)
>  %&-line parsing enabled.
> entering extended mode
> (./OpenType-info.tex
> ! Font \testfont=cmr10 at 12.0pt not loadable: ATSUI font not found.
> l.7 \font\testfont="\fontname" at 12pt
>
> I guess this is perfectly normal, given the CM OTF fonts are not  
> "standard" OS X OTF fonts, installed at the standard locations  
> /Library/Fonts etc. Maybe a warning should be specified then, in  
> OpenType-info.tex, telling which type of font files can be used.

True, this could be confusing.

OpenType-info.tex looks at fonts installed "natively" in Mac OS X, and  
reports on OpenType layout features found, by analogy with AAT-info  
which reports on AAT features.

The files under /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/fonts/otf/, although  
they're .otf-packaged, are used in association with .tfm files, and no  
OpenType processing applies; they're merely a library of glyphs. All  
layout is completely controlled by TeX and the .tfm.

> I used cmr10.otf because I'm unsure which font files, if any, on my  
> setup are OTF.

I doubt that any of the fonts Apple ships include OpenType features.

The .otf files shipped with XeTeX for CM and other legacy typefaces are  
OpenType in terms of file format, but include no OpenType Layout  
features. If you were to install them into Library/Fonts, you'd be able  
to see them in standard apps and access them (by full names) within  
XeTeX, separate from using tfm files. But you really don't want to do  
that; you'd lose the standard features provided by the tfm, while not  
gaining anything as these fonts don't have standard encodings or  
"smart" font features.

To do anything useful with the OpenType *Layout* support in XeTeX (as  
opposed to its use of .otf files as packaging for "featureless" legacy  
fonts), you'd need to have fonts such as Adobe's or Linotype's or some  
other vendor's OpenType products. Or non-Latin fonts built for  
OpenType-based platforms such as Uniscribe. If you just want to see  
what OpenType-info.tex reports, grab Code2000 or FreeFontPro off the  
web and try those.

Jonathan