[XeTeX] xmaths update

Will Robertson will at guerilla.net.au
Fri Mar 3 08:12:13 CET 2006


On 03/03/2006, at 15:26 , Ross Moore wrote:

> I'm using your listings to provide translations to Unicode for  
> Bookmark strings
> for titles, section-titles and captions in Mathematics journal  
> articles.
> This includes super/sub-scripts wherever possible.

Sounds great, and I'm very glad that xmaths is helping someone  
already. Thanks!

> Anyway, there seem to be some holes in your tables, that I've
> seen so far:

Yes, definitely. I've used at present Barbara Beeton's STIX table  
exclusively, which she has told me is still incomplete (but on which  
she's working hard to complete).

> This encoding file, that comes with  hyperref :
>
>     kpsewhich puenc.def
>
> defines macros   \textAlpha \textBeta, etc.
> for all the upper-case Greek letters,
> These come in the range   00391 --> 003A7 ,
> and  \textomicron  for  003BF .
>
> That enc-file also supports some accented capitals just
> outside this range, and also lower-case accented greeks.
> Maybe xmaths could include these also?
> Or maybe these are best done by  xunicode.sty ???

This is a confusing matter to me. The STIX table assigns these  
characters the macro names \Alpha..\zeta, which seems incorrect for  
use with maths. In my opinion (and understanding), Greek letters in  
maths should always reside in the range beginning 1D6A8 -- even if  
stylistic variations in the font end up rendering them non-italic. I  
might need to follow this up with Barbara, as well.

Depending on how unicode maths ends up working, these should go in  
xunicode if they are to be used for text input, and in xmaths if used  
for maths input.

(Do you agree with this separation of functionality? xmaths will also  
contain whatever macros are required to make unicode maths more  
convenient.)

> Why do you only cover a few letters in the  small-caps range ?

Again, this is simply a matter of (for now) blindly following the  
STIX table. If it will be complete eventually (and by the release of  
the STIX fonts), I'm not going to spend the time to fill in the  
blanks when BB will be doing it anyway (although if I can help her  
that's a different story).

On the other hand, if there are ranges of maths characters that are  
not supplied by STIX, I'll fill them in myself.

Best regards,

Will



More information about the XeTeX mailing list