Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 4 October 2010 12:25, Keith J. Schultz keithjschu...@web.de wrote: TeX was developed as a subset of SGML or if you wish clone, variant, etc. This is completely wrong, and anachronistic. SGML was born long after TeX and LaTeX. It is true that LaTeX's syntax owes a debt to Scribe (as Lamport says somewhere), and that Scribe, Waterloo Script and similar systems were early forerunners of the concept of structure/content distinction that was later also taken up by SGML. But in any case, none of this applies to Knuth's plain TeX, which was developed independently as a software project to typeset his own books. Dominik -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 05.10.2010 um 12:46 schrieb Dominik Wujastyk: This is completely wrong, and anachronistic. SGML was born long after TeX and LaTeX. You probably mean that ISO standard on SGML from 1986 (8879). There is none for any TeX dialect... William W. Tunnicliffe had the idea of SGML at least one decade before Knuth complained about the new look of his books. When SGML became an established ISO standard, in 1986, Knuth was so satisfied with the output of TeX82 and gave a party. -- Mit friedvollen Grüßen Pete Some day we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
TeX was developed as a subset of SGML or if you wish clone, variant, etc. TeX is a declarative and procedural programming language. What is more important it is dynamic! That is it is possible to change the definitions of the macros used while the program is running. Thereby giving you the ability to change the semantics of the command itself as well as the semantics of the document structure! TeX as a programming language is a derivative of LISP and in this sense it is declarative, though not functional. Now, a language that is procedural is (almost?) an imperative programming language and frankly I don't understand how an imperative language can be declarative at the same time. Also, informally speaking, when one says a language is dynamic or static, he/she refers to the type system of the language. A.S. -- Apostolos Syropoulos Xanthi, Greece -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi All,
I chime in here.
This is all OT.
At the risk of being mark as a TROLL, here goes.
Evidently, the participants of this discussion come from varying
backgrounds and the terminology is getting all messed up.
1) structure of a document
a) syntactic and semantic (linguistic)
b) formatting structure (tex elements used to describe 1a
2) computingscience
a) defining structures
b) syntax and semantic
3) TeX
a) TeX is a program, engine, ML-language
b) is extensible
3) XML
a) is a Mark-up language
b) extensible (X)
c) strictly typed and uniform (well-formedness)
d) You need a parser of some sort to do anything meaningful
with except describe and define structure.
TeX was developed as a subset of SGML or if you wish clone, variant,
etc.
TeX is a declarative and procedural programming language. What is more
important it is dynamic! That is it is possible to change the
definitions of the
macros used while the program is running. Thereby giving you the
ability to change
the semantics of the command itself as well as the semantics of the
document structure!
With XML you are suppose to adhere to the defined structure and
semantics, well-formedness.
Yet, by properly designing the structure of your XML-document one can
implement
dynamic structures. It is just a matter of complexity. XML
extensibility is based on this fact, otherwise
one could not define arbitrary structures. Schemas and XSYT are similar
to what LaTeX et al. to TeX is.
The XML Query language could be consider something like a engine. Do
not forget XML does nothing,
you need a program to process the information inside it. That is what
the TeX-program and its variants
do!
TeX was designed with typesetting and wordprocessing in its true sense
in mind. TeX in its pure form is
very low level and highly powerful, though many do not harness it to
its full potential.
Any comments please off-list, thank you.
regards
Keith.
Am 03.10.2010 um 13:41 schrieb Tobias Schoel:
Am 03.10.2010 12:43, schrieb Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd):
Philipp Stephani wrote:
Yes, but is that really structure? Of course it's basically a
question of definition, but if you look at other technologies that are
supposed to be able to express structure (e.g. XML), then you'll find
data modeling, schema, transformation and querying languages, all of
which are nonexistent in the TeX world. What I want to say is that
macros can give a pretty good *simulation* of structure, but that
simulation is leaky. In the middle of a LaTeX document you can say
\let\chapter\section
and all subsequent sections turn into chapters. This lack of
referential transparency makes LaTeX documents pretty complex and hard
to process compared to XML languages.
Agreed. Because TeX is not only a declarative language but also
a procedural language, one can abuse it to change the semantics
of one's markup mid-stream. That one should not so do is by
the by : one can. However, TeX purists such as myself prefer
to keep the declarative and procedural aspects entirely separate,
whence the fact that my own documents are frequently marked up
using a totally different syntax to Don's backslash and braces :
I prefer an SGML/HTML/XML-like syntax that I have described elsewhere
as ATML or XTML ({A|eXtensible} TeX Markup Language).
In giving the world TeX, Don gave us a loaded gun; it is
up to us to use it wisely.
** Phil.
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Agreed as well, but that's another question of style, which is important in
structured thinking:
If I want the document to have a uniform layout of its structural elements
(such that every reader can extract the structure easily from the document),
I shouldn't redefine the structural elements in the middle of the document.
I write the content, I structure the content by \chapter, \section, etc., I
redefine what these macros do in the preamble.
I don't know enough about xml and the other concepts you named as part of
structure, but these LaTeX-Macros _are_ structural elements. Even a simple
full stop . in text is a structural element, although it works at another
level.
bye Toscho
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi Everybody, I am very sorry for starting this discussion of on OT route. Whether to use Word or TeX for one purpose the other is very philosophical. Each has their strengths and deficiencies. A discussion that does not belong here and there is no real answer to the question. TeX is used in the world of academia because of its strengths. Word is use because most have contact with it and it suffices and the users do not want to learn TeX just for one or two papers that they might need it for. I know this for a fact. I have work with professors, fellow students, linguist, physicist, mathematicians, programmers, and academics in the field of the humanities. Probably, the best reasons for TeX is that Word is not designed for large projects. For any less than 50 pages and a very simple layout Word is fine. If a project is large, has many Tables, figures and other structures, multiple input files from several authors Word starts acting up. Making global changes causes all kinds of artifacts. Formatting going crazy the most often symptom. Most of the time the only cure is to revert to plain text and start formatting from scratch. Very time consuming. As far the Look of the output I would say it lies in the eye of the beholder The main point is that depending on your resources, knowledge and available one will choose the one system or the other.for my part I have learned to take what is there and make the most of it. I use TeX, Word, programming, graphic tools to get a problem solved. It might not be the TeXish way or Wordish way, but get the document set in a timely fashion. On the matter of OpenMath, well XeTeX is getting their. AMS was not finished in one day either. If anymore cares to comment then please do to me personally and please not on the list. regards Keith. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
10...@googlemail.com 099c5363-8fa4-43bd-bc2e-f981c1da6...@web.de 291385.69446...@web110116.mail.gq1.yahoo.com Message-ID: 3b7d79f69c7aa8d3caf00316e53fa...@umiacs.umd.edu X-Sender: maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu User-Agent: RoundCube Webmail/0.3.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Mon, 4 Oct 2010 06:22:13 -0700 (PDT), Apostolos Syropoulos asyropou...@yahoo.com wrote: [not sure who is being quoted here:] TeX was developed as a subset of SGML TeX as a programming language is a derivative of LISP I'm puzzled here. Re the '' line: AFAIK, TeX was developed before SGML existed; XML is derived from SGML (not sure it's strictly a subset), maybe that's '' meant to write. As for the '' line, the first version of TeX was implemented in SAIL, which was an Algol-like programming language. The current version is written in WEB, which is a Pascal-based system + documentation; it is often converted to C for compilation. And TeX itself doesn't look anything like LISP to me, but maybe I'm missing s.t.? (Like a CAR and a CDR and...) Can someone enlighten me/us here? Mike Maxwell -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Sent from my iPad On 05/10/2010, at 4:13 AM, maxwell maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu wrote: On Mon, 4 Oct 2010 06:22:13 -0700 (PDT), Apostolos Syropoulos asyropou...@yahoo.com wrote: [not sure who is being quoted here:] TeX was developed as a subset of SGML It's pretty clear that Keith meant to say that XML was developed as a subset of SGML. This is just one of many typos in his postings; this being one that really does require correction. TeX as a programming language is a derivative of LISP I'm puzzled here. Re the '' line: AFAIK, TeX was developed before SGML existed; XML is derived from SGML (not sure it's strictly a subset), maybe that's '' meant to write. As for the '' line, the first version of TeX was implemented in SAIL, which was an Algol-like programming language. The current version is written in WEB, which is a Pascal-based system + documentation; it is often converted to C for compilation. And TeX itself doesn't look anything like LISP to me, but maybe I'm missing s.t.? (Like a CAR and a CDR and...) Can someone enlighten me/us here? Mike Maxwell Hope this helps, Ross -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
As for the '' line, the first version of TeX was implemented in SAIL, which was an Algol-like programming language. The current version is So what? I do not understand what's the point you are trying to make. A language implementor can freely choose any existing language to implement a new programming language. For example, charity, a functional programming language, has been implemented in C. And someone has implemented a subset of BASIC in TeX itself. written in WEB, which is a Pascal-based system + documentation; it is often converted to C for compilation. And TeX itself doesn't look anything like LISP to me, but maybe I'm missing s.t.? (Like a CAR and a CDR and...) Several years ago I read somewhere, but I do not remember where, that TeX was inspired by LISP. It is obvious that TeX processes lists and list form the core of LISP, thus, I suppose this is the connection between TeX and LISP A.S. -- Apostolos Syropoulos Xanthi, Greece -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
O.K. I am can not remember where I got the part where TeX was based on SGML. Maybe, I have the context wrong maybe it was LaTeX. It was somewhere in the depths of CTAN, though. regards Keith Am 04.10.2010 um 19:13 schrieb maxwell: 10...@googlemail.com 099c5363-8fa4-43bd-bc2e-f981c1da6...@web.de 291385.69446...@web110116.mail.gq1.yahoo.com Message-ID: 3b7d79f69c7aa8d3caf00316e53fa...@umiacs.umd.edu X-Sender: maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu User-Agent: RoundCube Webmail/0.3.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Mon, 4 Oct 2010 06:22:13 -0700 (PDT), Apostolos Syropoulos asyropou...@yahoo.com wrote: [not sure who is being quoted here:] TeX was developed as a subset of SGML TeX as a programming language is a derivative of LISP I'm puzzled here. Re the '' line: AFAIK, TeX was developed before SGML existed; XML is derived from SGML (not sure it's strictly a subset), maybe that's '' meant to write. As for the '' line, the first version of TeX was implemented in SAIL, which was an Algol-like programming language. The current version is written in WEB, which is a Pascal-based system + documentation; it is often converted to C for compilation. And TeX itself doesn't look anything like LISP to me, but maybe I'm missing s.t.? (Like a CAR and a CDR and...) Can someone enlighten me/us here? Mike Maxwell -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Philipp Stephani wrote: Here (in German): http://www.golatex.de/latex-mathe-font-fuer-bildschirm-t3664.html Although I have to admit that in that case the quality is more related to the font and not so much to the typesetting. But see Ulrik's article for an overview of the improvements made possible by OpenType math. Yes, two points emerge from that : 1) The questioner admits that he is a beginner at LaTeX : bin LaTeX Anfänger 2) The question was about fonts rather than how to accomplish something maths-related in LaTeX that could be better done in Word 2007. Whilst I am willing to accept that Word 2007 2010, for the first time in the history of Word, are now capable of typesetting some mathematics with a reasonable degree of sophistication, I have yet to see any evidence that either can surpass TeX for complex mathematical formulae. As an aside, the Unicode Nearly Plain-Text Encoding of Mathematics, Version 3 (Unicode Technical Note #28) [1] makes very interesting reading. Philip Taylor [1] http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn28/UTN28-PlainTextMath-v3.pdf -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Philipp Stephani wrote:
In TeX you cannot state the structure because TeX is a low-level
typesetting system that offers only a few low-level primitives
and a macro language.
If TeX offered only a few low-level primitives, I would have
been willing to accept that your argument might have merit, but
you yourself then go on to say (quite correctly) and a macro
language. And it is precisely /because/ of TeX's macro language
that one can express the exact structure of any document, using
either a mutually interchangeable set of conventions such as LaTeX
or Context, or using a private macro package of one's own. Many
choose one of the first two options, I prefer the third, but all
of us are able to express document structure in TeX.
Yes, there are still a few unenlightened souls who continue to write
\bigskip \Huge My Title \\ \Large and my sub-title \medskip \bf
\centerline {Abstract}
but fortunately they are now an endangered species :-)
Philip Taylor
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Philipp Stephani wrote:
Yes, but is that really structure? Of course it's basically a question of
definition, but if you look at other technologies that are supposed to be able to express
structure (e.g. XML), then you'll find data modeling, schema, transformation and querying
languages, all of which are nonexistent in the TeX world. What I want to say is that
macros can give a pretty good *simulation* of structure, but that simulation is leaky. In
the middle of a LaTeX document you can say
\let\chapter\section
and all subsequent sections turn into chapters. This lack of referential
transparency makes LaTeX documents pretty complex and hard to process compared
to XML languages.
Agreed. Because TeX is not only a declarative language but also
a procedural language, one can abuse it to change the semantics
of one's markup mid-stream. That one should not so do is by
the by : one can. However, TeX purists such as myself prefer
to keep the declarative and procedural aspects entirely separate,
whence the fact that my own documents are frequently marked up
using a totally different syntax to Don's backslash and braces :
I prefer an SGML/HTML/XML-like syntax that I have described elsewhere
as ATML or XTML ({A|eXtensible} TeX Markup Language).
In giving the world TeX, Don gave us a loaded gun; it is
up to us to use it wisely.
** Phil.
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 03.10.2010 12:43, schrieb Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd):
Philipp Stephani wrote:
Yes, but is that really structure? Of course it's basically a
question of definition, but if you look at other technologies that are
supposed to be able to express structure (e.g. XML), then you'll find
data modeling, schema, transformation and querying languages, all of
which are nonexistent in the TeX world. What I want to say is that
macros can give a pretty good *simulation* of structure, but that
simulation is leaky. In the middle of a LaTeX document you can say
\let\chapter\section
and all subsequent sections turn into chapters. This lack of
referential transparency makes LaTeX documents pretty complex and hard
to process compared to XML languages.
Agreed. Because TeX is not only a declarative language but also
a procedural language, one can abuse it to change the semantics
of one's markup mid-stream. That one should not so do is by
the by : one can. However, TeX purists such as myself prefer
to keep the declarative and procedural aspects entirely separate,
whence the fact that my own documents are frequently marked up
using a totally different syntax to Don's backslash and braces :
I prefer an SGML/HTML/XML-like syntax that I have described elsewhere
as ATML or XTML ({A|eXtensible} TeX Markup Language).
In giving the world TeX, Don gave us a loaded gun; it is
up to us to use it wisely.
** Phil.
--
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http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Agreed as well, but that's another question of style, which is important
in structured thinking:
If I want the document to have a uniform layout of its structural
elements (such that every reader can extract the structure easily from
the document), I shouldn't redefine the structural elements in the
middle of the document.
I write the content, I structure the content by \chapter, \section,
etc., I redefine what these macros do in the preamble.
I don't know enough about xml and the other concepts you named as part
of structure, but these LaTeX-Macros _are_ structural elements. Even a
simple full stop . in text is a structural element, although it works
at another level.
bye Toscho
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
A very good source is Murray Sargent's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/ e.g. this (quite technical) post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/archive/2006/09/13/752206.aspx The new font tables enable one to automatically position subscripts and superscripts horizontally better than untweaked TeX as well as having richer glyph choices for operators like the integral sign, square root, and growable brackets. I agree that Microsoft has done a good job with OpenType MATH, but they did not invent the wheel. One could say that they have just transformed TeX' math engine into an OpenType table. Naturally, they have added features some people were expecting to be added in TeX. And finally, they sell all these for379,01€! A.S. -- Apostolos Syropoulos Xanthi, Greece -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 2 Oct 2010, at 18:56, Philipp Stephani wrote: Am 01.10.2010 um 00:49 schrieb Elliott Roper: As far a documentation is concerned look at the LaTeX Companion for packages. ..and that's where I get a bit taken aback. The book arrives last Saturday. I head for the Index for the bits I really need. XeTeX - nada fontspec - zip Unicode - uhuh ConTeXt - err sorry LuaTeX - the cat ate it I turn to the cover, and yes, it says Second Edition Which is from 2004. Do you accuse the LaTeX team of not having invented time travel? I'm a beginner. I have no idea of the history. I don't yet know how to find what version of each of those I have, and when it was released. I was having a little fun (mostly at myself) as I commented on documentation I would like to see in a beginner manual. TIme travel would be nice. If I could go back in time to when I ordered the book, I'd take better note the publication date. grin I have read more of TLC2 now, and it is well worth keeping. I wholeheartedly forgive the authors their lack of time travel skills. Elliott Roper -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 2 Oct 2010, at 19:12, Philipp Stephani wrote: Am 30.09.2010 um 20:12 schrieb Elliott Roper: What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite? Yes, and that won't change until LaTeX becomes a second ConTeXt. Hello again. I think I better postpone that discussion until I have experimented a lot more. I would be wasting your time and that of others on this list. I have been trying ConTeXt and LuaTeX as well as LaTeX and XeTeX with various packages and classes. Until I can clearly state what my problems with each of those are, there is not much point in asking more fool questions. Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX? Nobody can give a definitive answer to all these questions. For the moment, if pdflatex works for you, stick with it. For me, I can't reliably switch to anything else until OTF math and microtypography work as expected. I suspect that is not an uncommon answer. I'll give up if I can't get OTF working well enough for what I want to do. I gave up on TeX twice before because of my arrogant view of its font shortcomings. But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it? By not using LaTeX. Until there is a stable, modern foundation (LuaTeX plus an appropriate kernel), I wouldn't recommend LaTeX for many things outside the world of writing academic papers and theses. Mose people interested in design and typography use InDesign or QuarkXPress, and ConTeXt might be an option, too. I have already given up on InDesign. It is OK for less than 20 pages when you care more about the look than you do about the content. The idea of sending $1000 to Adobe every two years to get bug fixes and a bunch of features I don't want gets old pretty quickly. Elliott Roper -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 01.10.2010 um 08:25 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Hi, of course, any document has structure and formatting, even plain txt-files have. That's not the point. The point I made, and you wrote it yourself: - In TeX you explicitly state the structure/format. In TeX you cannot state the structure because TeX is a low-level typesetting system that offers only a few low-level primitives and a macro language. Macro packages such as LaTeX and ConTeXt Mk II try to simulate a generalized markup language using the macro language, but still there is very little structure in a LaTeX document compared to, say, a DocBook document. They don't use headlines and bold faces to give their document structure, they do it to give it Phluff, glamour, whatever. And when they enter their first headline, section title or whatever special element, they click at the little bold-symbol, then at the little number and change it to 20, then at the centering-symbol. And then, they think: that's not phluffy enough: lets click at italics, underline and make it comic sans. Ah, no I hate that font, make it Arial, ah no, make it back to times new roman. Hey, what about making it symbol or windings? Who cares how a document has been produced or how it looks like as long as you can read its contents? Sure, you can create documents in a structured way by using tools other than texco., even by using ms office. But children and students can't. And if you want children to do, ms officeco. won't let you. Use TeX to demonstrate, to make clear as sky the difference: structure. I don't know why this discussion should be relevant at all, but no: there is nothing more of the so-called structure in a LaTeX document than in a Word document. Both systems support formatting *and* semantical markup. For most documents semantical markup is irrelevant, and for those where it's relevant it can easily be done in Word with things like formatting styles. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 01.10.2010 um 00:49 schrieb Elliott Roper: As far a documentation is concerned look at the LaTeX Companion for packages. ..and that's where I get a bit taken aback. The book arrives last Saturday. I head for the Index for the bits I really need. XeTeX - nada fontspec - zip Unicode - uhuh ConTeXt - err sorry LuaTeX - the cat ate it I turn to the cover, and yes, it says Second Edition Which is from 2004. Do you accuse the LaTeX team of not having invented time travel? -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 01.10.2010 um 00:14 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 30.09.2010 um 00:42 schrieb Alan Munn: And I deal with a broad range of students at a major US research university. U.S. American students are not a gauge for Earth's youth. I didn't talk about American students. What I described was sort of a lowest common denominator among students of math, computer science, or natural sciences. Of course there are many students who are able to program and read technical documentation, but because it's not a required skill, for many LaTeX is (one of) their first programming language(s). And programming is very different from more basic tasks in computing: even the best IDE or editor doesn't save you from staring at a white text input field with a blinking cursor, and then you must have read some technical documentation (books, tutorials, etc.) if you want to continue. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 30.09.2010 um 20:12 schrieb Elliott Roper: What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite? Yes, and that won't change until LaTeX becomes a second ConTeXt. Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX? Nobody can give a definitive answer to all these questions. For the moment, if pdflatex works for you, stick with it. For me, I can't reliably switch to anything else until OTF math and microtypography work as expected. But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it? By not using LaTeX. Until there is a stable, modern foundation (LuaTeX plus an appropriate kernel), I wouldn't recommend LaTeX for many things outside the world of writing academic papers and theses. Mose people interested in design and typography use InDesign or QuarkXPress, and ConTeXt might be an option, too. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 30.09.2010 um 17:33 schrieb Axel Kielhorn:
The attractiveness to using LaTeX to exchange documents (in the past,
and to a large extent, even now) is that you can be sure that the
source file can be read by your computer, even if you don't have the
same fonts or language support (EOL and codepage issues aside). XeTeX
introduces many stumbling blocks to this portability, even as it
solves others.
There are quiet a lot of opentype fonts included with TeXLive (and probably
MikTeX).
May I need to stress that anything not provided by TL may be less portable.
Yes, but if you want portability, you use the Portable Document Format. The key
advantage of XeTeX is the ability to use system fonts without any effort. If
you want to restrict yourself to TeX Live fonts (ignoring professional fonts
such as Cambria or Hoefler Text), then XeTeX is much less useful than it can be.
TeXworks and TeXmaker are very good candidates for inclusion because they're
easy to use and are cross-platform.
I will add a short note about TeXworks since it is supplied by TL (for
Windows and MacOS).
TeXshop as very popular IDE and if TeXworks, which is modeled on TeXshop, is
mentioned, then TeXshop should be mentioned as well.
I've run several LaTeX workshops for the linguistics department at my
university, and most people go straight back to Word because seeing
\emph{} makes them physically uncomfortable. The few that stay with
it, they need a little guidance and a lot of information. This is
where a document like an xshort would come in.
A few suggestions
-I would like to see mention of RTL and CJK support in the XeTeX
section, the is the main reason why I use XeTeX over (pdf)LaTeX. I'd
also change in the past to in regular LaTeX or something similar.
I will extend the paragraph about RTL and mention CJK.
Both, pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX are regular LaTeX.
Ideally the distinction between engine, format, executables and packages should
be worked out. Often this distinction isn't clear even to long-term users.
A current user of LaTeX is unlikely to read lshort.
That depends on the marketing:
Now with improved Unicode support!
Use your system fonts, including C*mic S*ans!
http://ctan.org/pkg/comicsans ;-)
-under How do I get OpenType fonts, I would add OpenType fonts are
included with Windows (XP or newer), and all versions of OS X.
That would be unportable.
Maybe, but it is the key reason to use XeTeX!
-I would also mention AAT fonts for OS X
I'd rather not. AAT is not portable.
Same as above. The initial reason to develop XeTeX was to provide access to AAT
fonts, and XeTeX was a Mac-only product for a long time.
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 30.09.2010 um 16:01 schrieb Keith J. Schultz: With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim. When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing I don't know if that is really true. It's relatively easy to find out the current style of a character/paragraph in a Word document. The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier to change style and page metrics as compared to Word. Why that? You can edit page metrics in Word without much effort, and you can also have elaborate document templates. Most users in Word do not bother with creating custom styles and enforcing their use. Even when groups have to collaborate and have to adhere to a style. The problems start when they try to bring things together. Now, if they had taken the time to create a style and distributed to the others there would be problems, if the format had to be changed. With TeX et. al. you basically use styles naturally and adhere to them. I don't agree. Why it should be more natural to write \section instead of \Large\bfseries. That's not more natural than applying the first-level heading style to a paragraph in Word. But, in a group if somebody does not or decides to start modifying commands you get similar problems as above. I seen happen all to often and trying top get a decent document was one hell of a job and the end the end document was put together piecemeal. This seems to be more of a project management problem, and not related to TeX or Word. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Le 02/10/2010 21:22, Alan Munn a écrit : On Oct 2, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Philipp Stephani wrote: Am 30.09.2010 um 09:36 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Hi, there are three kinds of people who should learn TeXCo: - those who absolutely need TeX, because no other system let's them produce the documents they have to (all this linguistis and co. [don't take offense, I have no idea of the professions around this topic]) Please elaborate on why they should use TeX. Personally I think that TeX is quite inappropriate for linguistics. I'm not sure that this discussion should really continue, but what do you know about linguistics that would give you such an opinion? LaTeX is very appropriate for linguistics, and many working linguists are using it (not to mention that it is used to typeset various linguistics journals.) As I mentioned in a previous message it provides many concrete advantages: automatic numbering/referencing of linguistic examples, automatic aligning of foreign language words/translations, automatic syntactic tree drawing; a full range of logic symbols, easy access to phonetic fonts etc., not to mention other basic academic requirements such as citations and bibliographies. Doing most of this in Word is either not trivial or not possible. And I'll add: printing a corpus with annotations that don't show up but are fed to LuaTeX for statistics, and returned as tables. What I'm doing right now. With reference from main work to example number, mention of origin, etc. At the very least, I'd concede TeX is not mandatory for linguistics, as anything else, but ``inappropriate'' lets me wonder, and I'd require an explanation, if transient trollism wasn't an option, as suggested by Alan. Paul -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 02.10.2010 um 21:52 schrieb Paul Isambert: Le 02/10/2010 21:22, Alan Munn a écrit : On Oct 2, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Philipp Stephani wrote: Am 30.09.2010 um 09:36 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Hi, there are three kinds of people who should learn TeXCo: - those who absolutely need TeX, because no other system let's them produce the documents they have to (all this linguistis and co. [don't take offense, I have no idea of the professions around this topic]) Please elaborate on why they should use TeX. Personally I think that TeX is quite inappropriate for linguistics. I'm not sure that this discussion should really continue, but what do you know about linguistics that would give you such an opinion? LaTeX is very appropriate for linguistics, and many working linguists are using it (not to mention that it is used to typeset various linguistics journals.) As I mentioned in a previous message it provides many concrete advantages: automatic numbering/referencing of linguistic examples, automatic aligning of foreign language words/translations, automatic syntactic tree drawing; a full range of logic symbols, easy access to phonetic fonts etc., not to mention other basic academic requirements such as citations and bibliographies. Doing most of this in Word is either not trivial or not possible. And I'll add: printing a corpus with annotations that don't show up but are fed to LuaTeX for statistics, and returned as tables. What I'm doing right now. With reference from main work to example number, mention of origin, etc. At the very least, I'd concede TeX is not mandatory for linguistics, as anything else, but ``inappropriate'' lets me wonder, and I'd require an explanation, if transient trollism wasn't an option, as suggested by Alan. Well, I hope you accept lack of information as valid reason. I'm not a linguist and don't know much about the exact requirements in that field, but I haven't seen much LaTeX usage outside of the world of math and natural science, that's why I was a bit surprised. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Le 02/10/2010 22:36, Philipp Stephani a écrit :
Am 02.10.2010 um 21:52 schrieb Paul Isambert:
Le 02/10/2010 21:22, Alan Munn a écrit :
On Oct 2, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Philipp Stephani wrote:
Am 30.09.2010 um 09:36 schrieb Tobias Schoel:
Hi,
there are three kinds of people who should learn TeXCo:
- those who absolutely need TeX, because no other system let's them produce the
documents they have to (all this linguistis and co. [don't take offense, I have
no idea of the professions around this topic])
Please elaborate on why they should use TeX. Personally I think that TeX is
quite inappropriate for linguistics.
I'm not sure that this discussion should really continue, but what do you know
about linguistics that would give you such an opinion? LaTeX is very
appropriate for linguistics, and many working linguists are using it (not to
mention that it is used to typeset various linguistics journals.) As I
mentioned in a previous message it provides many concrete advantages:
automatic numbering/referencing of linguistic examples, automatic aligning of
foreign language words/translations, automatic syntactic tree drawing; a full
range of logic symbols, easy access to phonetic fonts etc., not to mention
other basic academic requirements such as citations and bibliographies. Doing
most of this in Word is either not trivial or not possible.
And I'll add: printing a corpus with annotations that don't show up but are fed
to LuaTeX for statistics, and returned as tables. What I'm doing right now.
With reference from main work to example number, mention of origin, etc.
At the very least, I'd concede TeX is not mandatory for linguistics, as
anything else, but ``inappropriate'' lets me wonder, and I'd require an
explanation, if transient trollism wasn't an option, as suggested by Alan.
Well, I hope you accept lack of information as valid reason. I'm not a linguist
and don't know much about the exact requirements in that field, but I haven't
seen much LaTeX usage outside of the world of math and natural science, that's
why I was a bit surprised.
Many books in linguistics are typeset with LaTeX (and many aren't); and
most if not all my fellows in PhD use LaTeX to typeset their
dissertations, without advisors forcing them to do so. And the fields
are quite diverse: experimental phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics,
acquisition, field linguistics... While I have my doubts about the first
advantage of LaTeX as stated in lshort (since that's what we're talking
about), namely that ``Professionally crafted layouts are available,
which make a document really look as if `printed','' nobody can deny
that a LaTeX document looks better than a Word document (which doesn't
mean it doesn't look as LaTeXish as a Word document looks Wordish).
As for structure, of course you can say {\bf Title} in TeX to produce a
section title, but \section{Title} isn't more complex, so you use it. In
Word, on the other hand, clicking ``Bold'' is simpler than fetching a
style (as far as I can tell). Most people use LaTeX like they use Word:
they don't ask many questions nor do they try to understand much of
what's going on. Basically, they do what they're told to do. But the
underlying software is simply better.
Paul
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Philipp Stephani wrote: Indeed I've already seen questions in LaTeX forums on how to achieve Word's math typesetting quality in LaTeX. Could you please cite such a question ? Philip Taylor -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 10/2/2010 2:47 PM, Philipp Stephani wrote: Typographers generally use systems with better typographical support than TeX can offer, e.g. InDesign or QuarkXPress. It may well be that ID or Quark are better for advertisements, magazines with lots of big glossy photos, and such. But Xe(La)TeX surely can do anything that is required for traditional text-oriented books, even those with some graphics. Typographic quality is one reason that Xe(La)TeX is so important; without XeTeX, all the OpenType features that ID or Quark users, or even Word users now in 2010, have access to are not available in TeX. And let us not forget the high price of admission for ID or Quark; unless one qualifies for academic pricing, ID cost $800 last time I checked. Even half that for academic users is still prohibitive for many, especially in developing countries. David -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi,
of course, any document has structure and formatting, even plain
txt-files have. That's not the point. The point I made, and you wrote it
yourself:
- In TeX you explicitly state the structure/format.
And going one step further:
- In TeX you explicitly state the structure.
- In TeX then you explicitly state the format.
Lean back from your long experience with typography and
computer-engineered publishing.
Then, look at TeXCo. from the viewpoint of a teenager or twen who has
no interest in either of it and who has learned to use MS Office
(probably not even Office programs in general) from school, their
parents, whoever.
Then look at how such a teenager created a text document, maybe a
project documentation for school. Don't look at the resulting document,
look at the process of creating it.
What will you see? What should you see?
The best you can hope for reallistically, is, that he has written it all
down by hand before he touched the computer. Then you can at least
suppose, that he has created the content without considering formatting.
But probably also without considering structure.
TeX doesn't force you, to add any structure to documents. You can
copypaste any txt-file to a tex-file, add
\documentclass{article}\begin{document}..\end{document} and do some
automatic character replacement for escape characters and you're done.
You can compile it and get a document, that has as less structure as the
txt-file.
But if you create a document sensefully with TeX, it's doubtlessly
better to _think_ structurally, while doing it. And that's what I'm
trying to say:
! Teach the children and students to think structurally!
They don't use headlines and bold faces to give their document
structure, they do it to give it Phluff, glamour, whatever. And when
they enter their first headline, section title or whatever special
element, they click at the little bold-symbol, then at the little
number and change it to 20, then at the centering-symbol. And then,
they think: that's not phluffy enough: lets click at italics,
underline and make it comic sans. Ah, no I hate that font, make it
Arial, ah no, make it back to times new roman. Hey, what about making it
symbol or windings?
Half an hour gone, nothing produced, nothing achieved than
children/student laughing about windings.
There is a difference between typing \section{...} and typing ... and
clicking at bold. There even is a difference to typing ... and
clicking at formats: section 1, because it carries different
information feedback to the writer.
To come to the end:
Sure, you can create documents in a structured way by using tools other
than texco., even by using ms office. But children and students can't.
And if you want children to do, ms officeco. won't let you. Use TeX to
demonstrate, to make clear as sky the difference:
structure.
Bye, Toscho.
Am 30.09.2010 23:26, schrieb Keith J. Schultz:
Sorry if you got the impression that I had something against TeX or bias
towards WYSIWYG!
My point was basically, Any document has structure and formatting.
TeX does not enforce structure. In TeX you explicitly state the
structure/format.
TeX use to be the most powerful typesetting system around and was use by
many publishing houses. Well, we have come a long way and there are better
and easier to use systems. Publishing works differently, nowadays.
YET, TeX is the best by for your money and allows for us to save money, by
allowing us to create PDFs that can be used for for publishing purposes.
Or create great documents with only the expense of a very hard learning curve.
I agree, Xe(La)TeX has a public relations problem, but xelshort will not change
change this in the sense that people will hear about it.
xelshort will though help in getting people to accept Xe(La)TeX as alot of
typing and commands are no longer need. This is especially, true for languages
other than english.
regards
Keith.
Am 30.09.2010 um 19:11 schrieb Gerrit Glabbart:
Am 30.09.2010 um 16:01 schrieb Keith J. Schultz:
snip
If you take the
time to look at a Word-file(doc or docx) verbatim, you will see the structure.
Though some of it will not be human discernible.
I'd call that a drawback, wouldn't you?
With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim.
When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing, but there is
not more structure.
More awareness is better, no?
The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier to
change
style and page metrics as compared to Word.
more flexibility; easier to change; again, better.
snip
I didn't think I'd have to defend the merits of TeX *on a mailing list devoted
to (a form of) TeX*, but here we are.
I'm not saying LaTeX is for everyone, or that working in TeX is an inherently
superior experience for everyone (though it is for me) -- but I am saying that
(a lot) more people than mathematicians and
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi Tobias,
I see where you are coming from.
But, your basic point are here OT. I will mail you off list as
this discussion though interesting is of mcuh interest to this
list that education of students.
regards
Keith.
Am 01.10.2010 um 08:25 schrieb Tobias Schoel:
Hi,
[snip, snip]
There is a difference between typing \section{...} and typing ... and
clicking at bold. There even is a difference to typing ... and clicking at
formats: section 1, because it carries different information feedback to
the writer.
To come to the end:
Sure, you can create documents in a structured way by using tools other than
texco., even by using ms office. But children and students can't. And if you
want children to do, ms officeco. won't let you. Use TeX to demonstrate, to
make clear as sky the difference:
structure.
Bye, Toscho.
[snip, snip]
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
hi,
that is correct. but it's also part of the discussion, whom lshort is aimed
at and what role xelatex plays in lshort for that specific reason.
as the discussion seems to have come to the end and a result has been
achieved, i think this thread can be closed.
On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Keith J. Schultz keithjschu...@web.dewrote:
Hi Tobias,
I see where you are coming from.
But, your basic point are here OT. I will mail you off list as
this discussion though interesting is of mcuh interest to this
list that education of students.
regards
Keith.
Am 01.10.2010 um 08:25 schrieb Tobias Schoel:
Hi,
[snip, snip]
There is a difference between typing \section{...} and typing ... and
clicking at bold. There even is a difference to typing ... and clicking at
formats: section 1, because it carries different information feedback to
the writer.
To come to the end:
Sure, you can create documents in a structured way by using tools other
than texco., even by using ms office. But children and students can't. And
if you want children to do, ms officeco. won't let you. Use TeX to
demonstrate, to make clear as sky the difference:
structure.
Bye, Toscho.
[snip, snip]
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 01.10.2010 um 00:49 schrieb Elliott Roper: On 30 Sep 2010, at 22:52, Keith J. Schultz wrote: As far a documentation is concerned look at the LaTeX Companion for packages. ..and that's where I get a bit taken aback. The book arrives last Saturday. I head for the Index for the bits I really need. XeTeX - nada fontspec - zip Unicode - uhuh ConTeXt - err sorry LuaTeX - the cat ate it I turn to the cover, and yes, it says Second Edition On page xxvii it says February 2004. IIRC XeTeX was first included in TexLive 2007. It was MacOS only until a few month earlier. LuaTeX was included in 2009. You will not find anything about biblatex either, it was released last year. The whole thing is devolving into the Monty Python cheese shop sketch. Forget about anything you find about encoding. OK Yep, there's 137 pages of pine trees died in vain. That's the problem with dead trees: bit-rot. Forget about babel use polyglossia instead. now THAT sounds like a Norwegian Blue. Beautiful plumage! Nah, it is definitely french. As far as finding packages specifically designed around xetex I am at a loss, but pick up several names here. Maybe, some else can compile a list. That's what I'm whinging about. That's what the XeTeX flavour of lshort needs to have in it. There is no special LaTeX for XeTeX. 90% of what you will find in the companion will work. It took some time to figure the graphics drivers out. PStricks works probably as good as in pdfLaTeX. TikZ is supposed to be engine independent. Doing a resumé? Here's a suggested preamble, and here's pointers to the documentation of packages explicitly and implicitly invoked. That's just plain text, \setromanfont is probably all you need. Doing a booklet? That's just plain text, \setromanfont is probably all you need. ditto.. Setting Unicode math? Here's what's different. (I found that one today, so I'm OK) Unicode math is really new. It says July 14, 2010. I'm gonna make it. It's an achievable challenge. And I'm determined to enjoy it too. Keep on reading this list, it is the cutting edge, ouch, anyone got a band-aid? Axel -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 01.10.2010 um 15:55 schrieb Axel Kielhorn:
Do you have a guide that explains how to turn a pdflatex document
into a xelatex document?
Something like this preamble?
\documentclass[11pt,final]{article}
\usepackage{ifpdf,ifxetex}
\usepackage{graphicx} %[dvipdfmx]
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage
[portrait
,nohead
,ignoreheadfoot
,right=14.5mm,left=1.25mm,top=18.75mm,bottom=0mm,nomarginpar]{geometry}
XeTeX
%%%
\ifxetex
\immediate\write16{==Wir sind mit XeTeX==}
\usepackage[no-math]{fontspec}% pre '10
% \usepackage{xltxtra,xunicode}% pre '10
%%polyglossia \usepackage{polyglossia}
%%polyglossia
\setdefaultlanguage
[spelling=new,latesthyphen=true,babelshorthands=true]{german}
%• \special{pdf:tounicode [CMapFile]}
% \XeTeXtracingfonts=1
\defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text}
% \setmainfont{Lucida Bright}
\immediate\write16{Wir sind vor Lucida Bright}%
\setromanfont{Lucida Bright}
\immediate\write16{Wir sind vor Lucida Sans}%
\setsansfont{Lucida Sans}
\immediate\write16{Wir sind vor Lucida Sans Typewriter}%
\setmonofont{Lucida Sans Typewriter}
\newfontface\slanted[RawFeature={slant=0.194}]{Lucida Bright}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\textsl}[1]{{\slanted #1}}
\usepackage[raiselinks=true]{hyperref} % ,dvipdfmx = *hyperref
using driver hdvipdfm*
% ,xetex= *hyperref
using driver hdvipdfm*
% nix = *hyperref
using default driver hdvipdfm*
\else
\immediate\write16{==Wir sind ohne XeTeX==}
\usepackage{cmap}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\renewcommand{\sfdefault}{pag}
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{ppl}
\renewcommand{\ttdefault}{pcr}
%%polyglossia \usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{fixltx2e,texnames,soul}
\usepackage{lucida}
\usepackage[unicode]{hyperref}
% \DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.pdf,.png,.jpeg} % allowed graphics
formats
\ifpdf
\immediate\write16{==\jobname: Bonjour, PDF!==}
\usepackage[activate={true,nocompatibility},verbose=true]
{microtype}
%\usepackage[protrusion=true,expansion=true]{microtype}
\makeatletter
\...@ifundefined{pdffilemoddate}{%
\PackageError{sourcetime}{%
pdfTeX = 1.30.0 required%
}%
\let\pdffilemodda...@gobble
}{}%
\newcommand*{\SourceFile}[1]{%
\ed...@sourcefiledate{\pdffilemoddate{#1}}%
% empty in case of errors, but don't harm in next comparison
\ifnum\pdfstrcm...@sourcefiledate}{\@CurrentSourceFileDate}0 %
\l...@currentsourcefiledate\@SourceFileDate
\expandaft...@parsedate\@sourcefileda...@nil
\hypersetup{%
pdfcreationdate...@sourcefiledate},%
pdfmoddate...@sourcefiledate}%
}%
\PackageInfo{sourcetime}{%
Using file `#1'%
}%
\fi
}
\newcommand...@currentsourcefiledate}{}
\expandafter\def\expandaft...@parsedate
\detokenize{D:}#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8{%
\year=#1#2#3#4\relax
\month=#5#6\relax
\day=#7#8\relax
\...@parsetime
}
\d...@parsetime #1#2#3#4...@nil{%
\time=\numexpr #1#2 * 60 + #3#4\relax
}
\makeatother
\SourceFile{\jobname.tex}
\else
\immediate\write16{==¡Hola \jobname: DVI!==}
% \DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.ps,.eps} % allowed graphics formats
\usepackage[protrusion=true,expansion=false]{microtype}
% \usepackage{times}
\fi
\makeatletter
\newcommand*\...@logo@spacing[6]{%
\def\...@kern@Te{#1}%
\def\...@kern@eX{#2}%
\def\...@lower@e{#3}%
\def\...@kern@La{#4}%
\def\...@kern@aT{#5}%
\def\...@kern@eL{#6}%
}
\DeclareRobustCommand\XeTeX{%
\leavevmode
\smash{%
x\lower\...@lower@e
\hbox{\kern\...@kern@eX
\setbox0=\hbox{E}\dimen0=\ht0\advance\dimen0by\dp0%
\reflectbox{E}%
}\kern\...@kern@Te\TeX}}%
\DeclareRobustCommand\XeLaTeX{%
\leavevmode
\smash{%
x\lower\...@lower@e
\hbox{\kern\...@kern@eX
\setbox0=\hbox{E}\dimen0=\ht0\advance\dimen0by\dp0\relax
\reflectbox{E}%
}\kern\...@kern@eL\LaTeX}}
\...@logo@spacing{-0.15em}{-0.125em}{0.5ex}{-0.36em}{-0.12em}
{-0.13em}
\makeatother
\fi
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and
I'm not sure about the former.
– Albert Einstein
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi, there are three kinds of people who should learn TeXCo: - those who absolutely need TeX, because no other system let's them produce the documents they have to (all this linguistis and co. [don't take offense, I have no idea of the professions around this topic]) - those who can use other systems but who would have an enourmous advantage in time and effort using TeX (mathematicians, other scientist, typographers of some kind [see above], ...) and now the important part - those who should think structurally (does this word exist?), when creating a text document. and that's nearly everybody who creates a text document other than a greeting or similar. To state it clearly: Every high school student, who wants to continue to university (in Germany: jeder Gymnasialschüler) should learn TeXCo. in order to _think_ _structurally_. It's not about programming vs. using. (I myself don't do anything plain TeX. I use packages and create new commands only as placeholders.) It's about the order in which to create a document: 1. content 2. structure 3. revise 12 4. layout MS WordCo. proposes another order: 1. content and layout mixed. 2. structure 3. revision (nearly impossible for large documents if its harder than using replace) Btw: Is the table of contents in word still created from layout forms? bye Toscho PS: The high school, where I teach (better: learn teaching) will begin to teach LaTeX to the grade-10-students of its STEM-branch. Am 30.09.2010 03:19, schrieb Mike Maxwell: On 9/29/2010 8:39 PM, Andy Lin wrote: lshort needs to be updated, not just because it's missing sections on Unicode and XeTeX. It's also working under the assumption that people will *need* to use the command line in order to process a document. This should be a concern to anyone who's looked at it recently. I hesitate to jump in, but I think it's worth thinking about (and perhaps saying, in this lshort document) why someone would want to use a TeX-type program, as opposed to MsWord or some such. I'm not convinced it's the right solution for everyone. If all you're doing is writing a five page homework paper, for example, do you really need to typeset it? By the time the prof marks it up for content (and maybe spelling), any typography is going to be obscured by the red ink. Dissertations are, I think, different; but very few people wind up writing dissertations. My own reason for getting into XeLaTeX is that we write multi-lingual grammars, the second of which was Urdu. Trying to produce decent looking Urdu text is a stretch for anyone who isn't a calligrapher, so I think we had a good case for using XeLaTeX for typesetting. (Probably the only other possibility would have been the Middle East version of InDesign.) I suppose some people use *TeX because they like programming approaches to things. (However, I've programmed in at least a dozen programming languages, and there are still design choices in *TeX that I scratch my head over. But yes, Donald Knuth is much smarter than I am, so I'm sure there's a reason.) Maybe a few people use it to produce greeting cards or wedding invitations or something. Mathematicians too, maybe, but there aren't many of them around. So: Who is the audience? And who among the not-already-converted ought to be proselytized? -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hear, hear. https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTIzNzI2MTY5 The voice of reason. There's really no point in editor-wars. As Phil rightly says, the choice of editing program is intensely personal. It's often determined by all sorts of factors that aren't obviously logical. Much the best thing is to remain neutral and helpful, by emphasizing the importance of Unicode capability, and by mentioning that some users find other features useful, like syntax highlighting, command completion or online (La)TeX help. There's no right answer to the which editor? question. Dominik On 29 September 2010 21:26, Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) p.tay...@rhul.ac.uk wrote: I've tried to stay out of this, but I can't :-( The choice of editor is an intensely personal one, and all that a document such as XeLshort should say is Use your preferred editor so long as it is capable of handling Unicode; editors that we know can handle Unicode successfully are listed in Appendix whatever. ** Phil. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Please, please take this discussion off this list. This is not the appropriate forum for it. Dominik On 30 September 2010 10:50, Keith J. Schultz keithjschu...@web.de wrote: Hi, Tobias bist du des Wahnsinns!! (Sorry, Tobias way over-board here) I hate to say this nobody actually needs TeXCo Nowadays. (See my next post) Not to say that they are the better system for doing things. TeX et al is for typesetting, layout and publishing that is its sole purpose! It was designed when you could not do alot of things with a computer easily. The content of a TeX-document is irrelevant. As far a structuralism is concerned, it is a obsolete concept in this modern world. Though, I agree that logic and good problem sovling skills are important and are not hardly taught anymore. regards (MfG) Keith. Am 30.09.2010 um 09:36 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Hi, there are three kinds of people who should learn TeXCo: - those who absolutely need TeX, because no other system let's them produce the documents they have to (all this linguistis and co. [don't take offense, I have no idea of the professions around this topic]) - those who can use other systems but who would have an enourmous advantage in time and effort using TeX (mathematicians, other scientist, typographers of some kind [see above], ...) and now the important part - those who should think structurally (does this word exist?), when creating a text document. and that's nearly everybody who creates a text document other than a greeting or similar. To state it clearly: Every high school student, who wants to continue to university (in Germany: jeder Gymnasialschüler) should learn TeXCo. in order to _think_ _structurally_. It's not about programming vs. using. (I myself don't do anything plain TeX. I use packages and create new commands only as placeholders.) It's about the order in which to create a document: 1. content 2. structure 3. revise 12 4. layout MS WordCo. proposes another order: 1. content and layout mixed. 2. structure 3. revision (nearly impossible for large documents if its harder than using replace) Btw: Is the table of contents in word still created from layout forms? bye Toscho PS: The high school, where I teach (better: learn teaching) will begin to teach LaTeX to the grade-10-students of its STEM-branch. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi All, I chime in here again. First, I give you some of my background. I have been around computer for 30 years, since the advent of the PC Apple IIe (my first) and the IBM PC( The 386 my second). I have work with Wordstar, Word, and (La)Tex when they were in their infancy. I have studied Physics, Mathematics, Humanities and Computer Linguistics. I am a computer linguist, programmer and developer. Now to the Topic. First, TeX et al was developed as a typesetting system and doing word processing in the true sense. Its most prominent feature was its device independent format DVI. It help mostly the academics in the (natural) sciences because it gave them a tool to, at the time, easily produce documents with figures and formulas. It was practically unknown in the Humanities, even well into the 90s. The only good books where from Knuth, Lampert et al. you had to buy them if you wanted to do anything with LaTeX or even get an idea what it was about and if it was useful. You found out how get it was by word of mouth or from your publisher. To help the situation lshort was created to give you a sense what can be done with LaTeX and it was free. It was a showcase to get the beginner started. The same should be true of xelshort. It should: 1 Introduce Unicode from a users point of view 2 Introduce fonts from the users point of view - different types - unicode fonts - what glyphs are - glyph repertoire (roughly) - it should not describe unicode features that is font fontspec - advantages of using unicode fonts - especially for input (more WYSIWYG like) 3 Introduce editors/systems from a users point of view - what TexLive is - advice on editors - why is the choice of an editor/system is important - suggest TeXWorks/TeXShop as starting point - advice of what is out there for the linux world mention that there is E-macs et. al also for Windows/Mac 4 Simple Example Xe(La)TeX document - explain preamble - class - why fonspec et. al. - why polyglossia - why not use babel - describe the most minimal specification need to use fonts with fonspec - how do I get my text displayed with my system font xyz 5 Examples of using Xe(La)TeX with standard LaTeX packages - what should be loaded when and where - RTL/LTR - language switching - which packages should be used instead standard packages - especially math 6 a short introduction to fontspec - basic features it offers for loading fonts - basic manipulation of fonts - where to get more infromation 7 advance features 8 where to go from here Well I think wraps it up. One of my main gripes about learning Xe(La)TeX is that I am not interested about getting a font with a particular metrics. I want to use my unicode and system fonts. In my documents and not worrying about metrics and font design and features. I mean I have still to find a introduction that says do this and you should be fine. YES, Xe(La)TeX can do more, but those are IMHO for specialist or experts. Most on this list are most certainly expert!! regards Keith. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
2010/9/30 Mike Maxwell maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu: On 9/29/2010 9:29 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote: I just like well organized articles with good hierarchy although I used to (before I retired) do all my exams in LaTeX with some custom macros. I think you're quite unusual. … but in a good way! :) Actually, the fact that *TeX enforces structured documents is an important feature, and it makes LaTeX useful even for people who have little or no need for math typesetting or non-latin scripts. Yes, you can (sort of) create structured documents with word processors like MS Word, but since you don't have to, and the advantages are not obvious at first, too few people do. In LaTeX, they have to, and find out the advantages for themselves, later. A similar argument can be made in favor of first composing the text and worrying about appearances (margins, fonts, layout, etc) later. Again, this too can be done in wysiwyg word processors, but I haven't yet met anyone who could resist tinkering with the layout while the focus should have been on the content only. -- Gerrit. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
I do not get it. A text document is per say structured one way or the other. Tex-documents do not add anymore structure to the text than any other WYSIWYG-Program. With WYSIWYG the structure of the document is not visible in the form of command codes, but are represented directly on your screen. If you take the time to look at a Word-file(doc or docx) verbatim, you will see the structure. Though some of it will not be human discernible. With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim. When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing, but there is not more structure. The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier to change style and page metrics as compared to Word. Most users in Word do not bother with creating custom styles and enforcing their use. Even when groups have to collaborate and have to adhere to a style. The problems start when they try to bring things together. Now, if they had taken the time to create a style and distributed to the others there would be problems, if the format had to be changed. With TeX et. al. you basically use styles naturally and adhere to them. But, in a group if somebody does not or decides to start modifying commands you get similar problems as above. I seen happen all to often and trying top get a decent document was one hell of a job and the end the end document was put together piecemeal. People how do use TeX, though do have a more intimate relationship to layout and formating, because they have to not that they want to. regards Keith. Am 30.09.2010 um 14:25 schrieb Gerrit Glabbart: 2010/9/30 Mike Maxwell maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu: On 9/29/2010 9:29 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote: I just like well organized articles with good hierarchy although I used to (before I retired) do all my exams in LaTeX with some custom macros. I think you're quite unusual. … but in a good way! :) Actually, the fact that *TeX enforces structured documents is an important feature, and it makes LaTeX useful even for people who have little or no need for math typesetting or non-latin scripts. Yes, you can (sort of) create structured documents with word processors like MS Word, but since you don't have to, and the advantages are not obvious at first, too few people do. In LaTeX, they have to, and find out the advantages for themselves, later. A similar argument can be made in favor of first composing the text and worrying about appearances (margins, fonts, layout, etc) later. Again, this too can be done in wysiwyg word processors, but I haven't yet met anyone who could resist tinkering with the layout while the focus should have been on the content only. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 30.09.2010 um 02:39 schrieb Andy Lin:
lshort needs to be updated, not just because it's missing sections on
Unicode and XeTeX. It's also working under the assumption that people
will *need* to use the command line in order to process a document.
This should be a concern to anyone who's looked at it recently.
You are right.
Even Mac users don't like to go to the command line.
And while lshort is a very important document, I'm not convinced that
it's necessarily the right place to go into a detailed explanation
about XeTeX or Unicode. Considering the usage that lshort assumes
(math),
lshort already covers writing in different languages:
Portuguese, French, German, Korean, Greek Cyrillic languages, Mongolian.
Writing in these languages may be simplified by using Unicode.
About 30 of 110 pages are math, everything else is general purpose.
XeTeX and Unicode introduce relatively little improvement (and
indeed, even with Unicode math support, I can see reasons why you'd
stay with LaTeX for the time being).
There are many documents available in English.
AFAIK lshort is the only document translated to many languages:
lshort-bulgarian/
lshort-chinese/
lshort-dutch/
lshort-english/
lshort-finnish/
lshort-french/
lshort-german/
lshort-italian/
lshort-japanese/
lshort-korean/
lshort-mongol/
lshort-persian/
lshort-polish/
lshort-portuguese/
lshort-russian/
lshort-slovak/
lshort-slovenian/
lshort-spanish/
lshort-thai/
lshort-turkish/
lshort-ukr/
lshort-vietnamese/
Thus any addition to lshort will reach many people who can actually profit from
XeTeX (via the translations).
The attractiveness to using LaTeX to exchange documents (in the past,
and to a large extent, even now) is that you can be sure that the
source file can be read by your computer, even if you don't have the
same fonts or language support (EOL and codepage issues aside). XeTeX
introduces many stumbling blocks to this portability, even as it
solves others.
There are quiet a lot of opentype fonts included with TeXLive (and probably
MikTeX).
May I need to stress that anything not provided by TL may be less portable.
Although the switch to Unicode ensures that you don't
run into codepage problems, you now have problems with individual
computer not being able to display certain scripts because the system
fonts don't support it.
When you need these characters, you will have a font that includes them.
Otherwise you wouldn't need the in XeLaTeX.
And although OpenType fonts provide you with
real small caps and fancy contextual alternates, you can only compile
the document on another computer if it also has the fonts you use.
These are all things which I think are outside of the scope of lshort
and concern a different audience (people who need multilingual
support, OpenType feature support, not to mention people who should
probably be using ConTeXT instead).
I consider lshort an introduction showing the basics.
You can write LGC, you can write RTL, you can write CJK.
Now go to the respective manual and read how to do it.
Earlier this year I read an article by a long time LaTeX user, where he
complained about the difficulties of writing a LGC document. He simply didn't
know about XeTeX.
My idea is to show:
You can do this, and it is easy (once you figured out how to input Unicode
characters.)
If you need this, move on to ...
A short introduction to XeTeX should include discussion of editors,
because not all popular editors support Unicode.
Both do (On Mac: All three do:-)
TeXworks and TeXmaker are very good candidates for inclusion because they're
easy to use and are cross-platform.
I will add a short note about TeXworks since it is supplied by TL (for Windows
and MacOS).
I've run several LaTeX workshops for the linguistics department at my
university, and most people go straight back to Word because seeing
\emph{} makes them physically uncomfortable. The few that stay with
it, they need a little guidance and a lot of information. This is
where a document like an xshort would come in.
A few suggestions
-I would like to see mention of RTL and CJK support in the XeTeX
section, the is the main reason why I use XeTeX over (pdf)LaTeX. I'd
also change in the past to in regular LaTeX or something similar.
I will extend the paragraph about RTL and mention CJK.
Both, pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX are regular LaTeX.
A current user of LaTeX is unlikely to read lshort.
That depends on the marketing:
Now with improved Unicode support!
Use your system fonts, including C*mic S*ans!
25% of for buyers of the previous version (\tiny receipt required)!
-I don't think the section on old style numerals or historical
ligatures is necessary,
But I need them for my paperback novel. Lining numerals in the body text are
just rude:-)
but I would keep the Polish ligature example.
I would like to see more examples like this.
I only know it, because it was shown in the presentation of the LM fonts in
2004.
(The main
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/30/2010 8:33 AM, Axel Kielhorn wrote: The main problem is that lshort is a latin1 document, thus it is almost impossible (yes, there is arabtex and CJK) to show examples. well... we are on the xetex mailing list: save the source as utf-8 unicode and then compile it with xelatex? =) - Mike Pomax Kamermans nihongoresources.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 30 Sep 2010, at 18:11, Gerrit Glabbart wrote: Am 30.09.2010 um 16:01 schrieb Keith J. Schultz: snip If you take the time to look at a Word-file(doc or docx) verbatim, you will see the structure. Though some of it will not be human discernible. I'd call that a drawback, wouldn't you? With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim. When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing, but there is not more structure. More awareness is better, no? The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier to change style and page metrics as compared to Word. more flexibility; easier to change; again, better. snip I didn't think I'd have to defend the merits of TeX *on a mailing list devoted to (a form of) TeX*, but here we are. I'm not saying LaTeX is for everyone, or that working in TeX is an inherently superior experience for everyone (though it is for me) -- but I am saying that (a lot) more people than mathematicians and linguists may find TeX useful, if they only ever heard about it. And that's were lshort comes in: it's (supposed to be) an overview over the possibilities and capabilities of LaTeX, with just enough information to get started, but not enough to be intimidating. It worked for me, it may work for others. Right now, any introduction to TeX that does not mention XeTeX must be considered incomplete, which is why I find this attempt to provide that mention so commendable -- so, thanks in advance! Gerrit, you spoke well. Permit me to append a long rant I have been stewing over for the last couple of days:- I'm a newbie to TeX. Well, I'm starting again after one or two short term miscarriages in the distant past when XeTeX, Context, fontspec and memoir did not exist. I gave up then because I had paying work to get out the door and I had no time to faff about with font metrics files before I could convince my customers to read what I had to tell them. For work, I had to get pretty good at Word, and fairly good at InDesign. To tell you the truth I hated Word. Sure you can set up styles and global templates, but getting any form of collaborative work done was like herding cats. I got to the point where I'd cut and paste special from my collaborators messes into my own styles, the ones they were supposed to use but didn't. If it had to look professional, and it was little and pretty, I'd pass it through InDesign. If it was big, I was snookered. I simply had to abandon any kind of typographic purity and stick with Word. Now I have the time, I'm doing it mostly for fun, and because XeTeX and fontspec and Context have made it easy to make documents that don't make non-academics come out in hives. lshort is my quick look bible. I have hard copy of TeXbook, Lamport and tlc2. I have memman.pdf more or less permanently on screen. And god knows how many Context how-tos and the UK TUG's faq usually sit beside it. I'd claim that ordinary LaTeX is fine for maths and physics folk. This list shows how important Unicode and XeTeX are for those working and studying in fields that use non-latin scripts. I'm perfectly relaxed about editors, Unicode and all the underpinnings of typography. I wrote my first commercial production typesetting code in 1970, in assembler, for a PDP-8 when most of you lot were still in primary school. I wrote teco macros to write teco macros to produce width tables for a Photon 30 when the damn things were brand new. And still I hated the mess required to get commercial fonts into LaTeX. I'm simultaneously learning Emacs for the first time ever. I swore by teco till my last VMS α died. (not that long ago) What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite? Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX? Maybe I'm just terminally confused, but there seems to be a lot of horses in this race. All whose jockeys urge their own steed on. That is really healthy. It is amazing that so many independent efforts co-operate as well as they do. But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it? Back when I was a Word MVP (a kind of honorary title bestowed upon those that made lots of noise and
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Sorry if you got the impression that I had something against TeX or bias towards WYSIWYG! My point was basically, Any document has structure and formatting. TeX does not enforce structure. In TeX you explicitly state the structure/format. TeX use to be the most powerful typesetting system around and was use by many publishing houses. Well, we have come a long way and there are better and easier to use systems. Publishing works differently, nowadays. YET, TeX is the best by for your money and allows for us to save money, by allowing us to create PDFs that can be used for for publishing purposes. Or create great documents with only the expense of a very hard learning curve. I agree, Xe(La)TeX has a public relations problem, but xelshort will not change change this in the sense that people will hear about it. xelshort will though help in getting people to accept Xe(La)TeX as alot of typing and commands are no longer need. This is especially, true for languages other than english. regards Keith. Am 30.09.2010 um 19:11 schrieb Gerrit Glabbart: Am 30.09.2010 um 16:01 schrieb Keith J. Schultz: snip If you take the time to look at a Word-file(doc or docx) verbatim, you will see the structure. Though some of it will not be human discernible. I'd call that a drawback, wouldn't you? With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim. When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing, but there is not more structure. More awareness is better, no? The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier to change style and page metrics as compared to Word. more flexibility; easier to change; again, better. snip I didn't think I'd have to defend the merits of TeX *on a mailing list devoted to (a form of) TeX*, but here we are. I'm not saying LaTeX is for everyone, or that working in TeX is an inherently superior experience for everyone (though it is for me) -- but I am saying that (a lot) more people than mathematicians and linguists may find TeX useful, if they only ever heard about it. And that's were lshort comes in: it's (supposed to be) an overview over the possibilities and capabilities of LaTeX, with just enough information to get started, but not enough to be intimidating. It worked for me, it may work for others. Right now, any introduction to TeX that does not mention XeTeX must be considered incomplete, which is why I find this attempt to provide that mention so commendable -- so, thanks in advance! -- Gerrit. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
I have set lshort for german in xetex and use some system fonts. But the code is old and it does not use unicode or the math styles for xetex. so alot of work to do. I not planing on converting it just use for experimenting. regards Keith. Am 30.09.2010 um 18:47 schrieb Michiel Kamermans: On 9/30/2010 8:33 AM, Axel Kielhorn wrote: The main problem is that lshort is a latin1 document, thus it is almost impossible (yes, there is arabtex and CJK) to show examples. well... we are on the xetex mailing list: save the source as utf-8 unicode and then compile it with xelatex? =) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi Elliot, Welcome aboard. First , if your on a Mac take a look at TeXShop, if not look at TeXWorks, it might be more familiar to you. It might be eaier that learning E-macs. (your call). As far a documentation is concerned look at the LaTeX Companion for packages. Forget about anything you find about encoding. Forget about babel use polyglossia instead. Use Unicode and Unicode fonts. As far as finding packages specifically designed around xetex I am at a loss, but pick up several names here. Maybe, some else can compile a list. regards Keith. Am 30.09.2010 um 20:12 schrieb Elliott Roper: Gerrit, you spoke well. Permit me to append a long rant I have been stewing over for the last couple of days:- I'm a newbie to TeX. Well, I'm starting again after one or two short term miscarriages in the distant past when XeTeX, Context, fontspec and memoir did not exist. I gave up then because I had paying work to get out the door and I had no time to faff about with font metrics files before I could convince my customers to read what I had to tell them. For work, I had to get pretty good at Word, and fairly good at InDesign. To tell you the truth I hated Word. Sure you can set up styles and global templates, but getting any form of collaborative work done was like herding cats. I got to the point where I'd cut and paste special from my collaborators messes into my own styles, the ones they were supposed to use but didn't. If it had to look professional, and it was little and pretty, I'd pass it through InDesign. If it was big, I was snookered. I simply had to abandon any kind of typographic purity and stick with Word. Now I have the time, I'm doing it mostly for fun, and because XeTeX and fontspec and Context have made it easy to make documents that don't make non-academics come out in hives. lshort is my quick look bible. I have hard copy of TeXbook, Lamport and tlc2. I have memman.pdf more or less permanently on screen. And god knows how many Context how-tos and the UK TUG's faq usually sit beside it. I'd claim that ordinary LaTeX is fine for maths and physics folk. This list shows how important Unicode and XeTeX are for those working and studying in fields that use non-latin scripts. I'm perfectly relaxed about editors, Unicode and all the underpinnings of typography. I wrote my first commercial production typesetting code in 1970, in assembler, for a PDP-8 when most of you lot were still in primary school. I wrote teco macros to write teco macros to produce width tables for a Photon 30 when the damn things were brand new. And still I hated the mess required to get commercial fonts into LaTeX. I'm simultaneously learning Emacs for the first time ever. I swore by teco till my last VMS α died. (not that long ago) What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite? Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX? Maybe I'm just terminally confused, but there seems to be a lot of horses in this race. All whose jockeys urge their own steed on. That is really healthy. It is amazing that so many independent efforts co-operate as well as they do. But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it? Back when I was a Word MVP (a kind of honorary title bestowed upon those that made lots of noise and sometimes helped the gullible in the MS NNTP groups) there was another such who wrote a document called Bend Word To Your Will which started as his private notes as he dragged himself from Word 5 to OS X flavours of it. It has become quite famous. We share two traits. We have given up on Word, and we are fond of good red wine. I'm kind of volunteering to do a Bend TeX Co to Your Will -- the newbie guide to making classy documents if all you are used to is Word and InDesign. I'm already taking the notes as I thrash my way through the thicket. If it comes out OK, I'll let it out of its cage. Elliott Roper phone: +44 1663 747334 mobile +44 7796 171018 www.yrl.co.uk -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 30.09.2010 um 00:42 schrieb Alan Munn: And I deal with a broad range of students at a major US research university. U.S. American students are not a gauge for Earth's youth. (Their number is also too small.) And indeed I more often interact with much younger people. -- Greetings ~ O Pete ~~_\\_/% ~ O o -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 30 Sep 2010, at 22:52, Keith J. Schultz wrote: Hi Elliot, Welcome aboard. Thanks First , if your on a Mac take a look at TeXShop, if not look at TeXWorks, it might be more familiar to you. It might be eaier that learning E-macs. (your call). I'm loving Emacs. It's evil! I am on OS X and Aquamacs lets me take a pointy-clicky break when I can't find the cheat-sheet under the pile of TeX literature. As far a documentation is concerned look at the LaTeX Companion for packages. ..and that's where I get a bit taken aback. The book arrives last Saturday. I head for the Index for the bits I really need. XeTeX - nada fontspec - zip Unicode - uhuh ConTeXt - err sorry LuaTeX - the cat ate it I turn to the cover, and yes, it says Second Edition The whole thing is devolving into the Monty Python cheese shop sketch. Forget about anything you find about encoding. OK Yep, there's 137 pages of pine trees died in vain. Forget about babel use polyglossia instead. now THAT sounds like a Norwegian Blue. Beautiful plumage! (I do really bad jokes) Use Unicode and Unicode fonts. Oh, yes. That's why I'm back here. With Unicode and support for proper typography the TeX panoply has me excited again about creating manageable documents where pointy-clicky tools have failed. As far as finding packages specifically designed around xetex I am at a loss, but pick up several names here. Maybe, some else can compile a list. That's what I'm whinging about. That's what the XeTeX flavour of lshort needs to have in it. Doing a resumé? Here's a suggested preamble, and here's pointers to the documentation of packages explicitly and implicitly invoked. Doing a booklet? ditto.. Setting Unicode math? Here's what's different. (I found that one today, so I'm OK) insert Monty Python joke here I'm gonna make it. It's an achievable challenge. And I'm determined to enjoy it too. thanks all for the encouragement. Elliott Roper -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
I do not think there should be any specific editor prposed. Instead a chapter about entering unicode and a few of the most popular editors and viewers should be listed with a short run down of the ups and downs. regards Keith. Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Hi, this discussion does indeed seem to get hot. (Wrong adjective?) The arguments concerning user expectance and user experience of windows UI have been exchanged, (The simples solution -- porting kile to windoof and using a pdf viewer which doesn't grabhold its file -- is of course out of reach. ;-)) and no agreement has been achieved. Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
I am neither a beginner nor a dumb user (which do not exist) but I will not touch Emacs with a ten foot pole. As far as short cuts and scripts are concerned I have the in TeXShop. Emacs is even intimidating to the intermediate developer. Do not get me wrong, it is very powerful and extendable. Emacs is just for powerusers. regards Keith. Am 28.09.2010 um 23:42 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 22:44 schrieb Philipp Stephani: Am 28.09.2010 um 21:16 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. Beginner does not mean the same as dumb user. By learning to use accelerating keyboard shortcuts one gains more time to learn TeX dialects and other details. Having to push the mouse around steals ones spare time. (Which you can waste in GNU Emacs as well, since it has hierarchic menus, even when running as a non-windowing programme, and it also has a tool-bar.) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 29-09-2010 8:33, Keith J. Schultz wrote: I am neither a beginner nor a dumb user (which do not exist) but I will not touch Emacs with a ten foot pole. As far as short cuts and scripts are concerned I have the in TeXShop. Emacs is even intimidating to the intermediate developer. Do not get me wrong, it is very powerful and extendable. Emacs is just for powerusers. Wow! I did not know that I was a poweruser. It feels great! Thanks for letting me know! :-) Best regards, José Carlos Santos -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi, I wouldn't recommend anything other than kile for linux users. for me it offers the fastest way of texing. I tried emacs when we got the task of learning and testing a bit of lisp in university, but I didn't get the feeling I'm becoming better and using this program seems to be an improvement. soon enough. That's why it should be mentioned but not recommenend for beginners: It's a paedagogical rule: don't change content and form simultaneously. (German speakers can read: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proaktive_Hemmung ) Toscho Am 28.09.2010 22:44, schrieb Philipp Stephani: Am 28.09.2010 um 21:16 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. It doesn't help if you have to learn LaTeX/ConTeXt *and* Emacs at the same time. TeXworks seems to be a modern, Unicode-capable solution, and AFAIK it is included in TeX Live. Thus the recommendation should be TeX Shop on OS X and TeXworks on Windows and Linux. AFAIK TeXworks has been modelled after TeX Shop, which should simplify the explanations. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Tobias Schoel wrote: I wouldn't recommend anything other than kile for linux users. for me it offers the fastest way of texing. I tried emacs when we got the task of learning and testing a bit of lisp in university, but I didn't get the feeling I'm becoming better and using this program seems to be an improvement. soon enough. That's why it should be mentioned but not recommenend for beginners: It's a paedagogical rule: don't change content and form simultaneously. (German speakers can read: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proaktive_Hemmung ) I've tried to stay out of this, but I can't :-( The choice of editor is an intensely personal one, and all that a document such as XeLshort should say is Use your preferred editor so long as it is capable of handling Unicode; editors that we know can handle Unicode successfully are listed in Appendix whatever. ** Phil. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 29.09.2010 um 21:26 schrieb Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd): Tobias Schoel wrote: I wouldn't recommend anything other than kile for linux users. for me it offers the fastest way of texing. I tried emacs when we got the task of learning and testing a bit of lisp in university, but I didn't get the feeling I'm becoming better and using this program seems to be an improvement. soon enough. That's why it should be mentioned but not recommenend for beginners: It's a paedagogical rule: don't change content and form simultaneously. (German speakers can read: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proaktive_Hemmung ) I've tried to stay out of this, but I can't :-( The choice of editor is an intensely personal one, and all that a document such as XeLshort should say is Use your preferred editor so long as it is capable of handling Unicode; editors that we know can handle Unicode successfully are listed in Appendix whatever. lshort is intended for beginners, and beginners don't know anything about Unicode or text editors. If you want to call them dumb, do it, but reality is approximately as follows: Users who read beginner documents such as lshort don't want to use TeX, but are forced to do so by their advisor. They don't want to read discussions about the pros and cons of various text editors or why Microsoft is evil. Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word (perhaps in three years from now they might not know about the latter, simply because they don't need it). Not a bit more. They don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step-by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. If TeXworks/TeXshop is included in TeX Live and is good enough, then there is no reason to mention other e! ditors unless you want to teach the very basics (i.e., how to edit text files, how to open a terminal window, etc.). -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 29.09.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Philipp Stephani: reality is approximately as follows: Users who read beginner documents such as lshort don't want to use TeX, but are forced to do so by their advisor. They don't want to read discussions about the pros and cons of various text editors or why Microsoft is evil. Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word (perhaps in three years from now they might not know about the latter, simply because they don't need it). Not a bit more. They don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step-by- step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. This *might* have been the situation in the so-called first or industrialised world 20 years ago. -- Mit friedvollen Grüßen Pete Die Zeit wird kommen, da unsere Nachkommen sich wundern werden, wie wir so wunderbare Dinge einfach gewusst haben konnten. (Ein Optimist nach Lucius Annæus Seneca) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Philipp Stephani wrote: Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word OK, so let's teach them how to create Unicode TeX sources using MS Word :-) Just as an experiment, I tried it; the Save as was the hard part, since UTF-8 was not offered as a default, despite the fact that the document contained something that is pretty hard to represent in anything else : Hàn Thế Thành \end But I finally managed it, then tried to typeset it using XeTeX. Result : disaster (see attached). We'd better make sure that XeLshort advises users to select a Unicode-compatible font as default, which XeTeX clearly doesn't. Incidentally, it also demonstrates a strange bug/feature/w-h-y in the Win32 implementation of XeTeX; my source file was called HTT.tex, so the resulting PDF should have been called HTT.pdf, and that is what the log file claims was generated : E:\TeX\Projects\Testsxetex HTT This is XeTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.2-0.9997.3 (Web2C 2010) entering extended mode (./HTT.tex [1] ) (see the transcript file for additional information) Output written on HTT.pdf (1 page). Transcript written on HTT.log. Yet it wasn't; it was called htt.pdf, simply because there was already an htt.pdf in the current directory. E:\TeX\Projects\Testsdir HTT.* Volume in drive E is OneTouch4 Volume Serial Number is E79A-BF54 Directory of E:\TeX\Projects\Tests 29-Sep-2010 22:59 359 htt.log 29-Sep-2010 22:59 1,746 htt.pdf 29-Sep-2010 22:4828 HTT.tex 3 File(s) 2,133 bytes 0 Dir(s) 63,364,755,456 bytes free E:\TeX\Projects\Tests ** Phil. htt.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 29, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Peter Dyballa wrote: Am 29.09.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Philipp Stephani: reality is approximately as follows: Users who read beginner documents such as lshort don't want to use TeX, but are forced to do so by their advisor. They don't want to read discussions about the pros and cons of various text editors or why Microsoft is evil. Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word (perhaps in three years from now they might not know about the latter, simply because they don't need it). Not a bit more. They don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step-by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. This *might* have been the situation in the so-called first or industrialised world 20 years ago. No, in fact this is very accurate (except maybe the part about being forced by advisors). How often do you actually interact with undergraduate (or even graduate students) Pete? My experience is that they're really good at updating their Facebook status, but things deteriorate quickly from there, exactly as Philipp describes. And I deal with a broad range of students at a major US research university. Alan -- Alan Munn am...@gmx.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 06:42:42PM -0400, Alan Munn wrote: On Sep 29, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Peter Dyballa wrote: Am 29.09.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Philipp Stephani: reality is approximately as follows: Users who read beginner documents such as lshort don't want to use TeX, but are forced to do so by their advisor. They don't want to read discussions about the pros and cons of various text editors or why Microsoft is evil. Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word (perhaps in three years from now they might not know about the latter, simply because they don't need it). Not a bit more. They don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step-by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. This *might* have been the situation in the so-called first or industrialised world 20 years ago. No, in fact this is very accurate (except maybe the part about being forced by advisors). How often do you actually interact with undergraduate (or even graduate students) Pete? My experience is that they're really good at updating their Facebook status, but things deteriorate quickly from there, exactly as Philipp describes. And I deal with a broad range of students at a major US research university. Well, I myself graduated last month, so... -- Khaled Hosny Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team Free font developer -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Khaled Hosny wrote: Well, I myself graduated last month, so... So ... CONGRATULATIONS, Khaled! -- United in adoration of Jesus, fr. michael gilmary, mma Most Holy Trinity Monastery 67 Dugway Road Petersham, MA 01366-9725 www.MaroniteMonks.org -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 07:00:35PM -0400, Fr. Michael Gilmary wrote: Khaled Hosny wrote: Well, I myself graduated last month, so... So ... CONGRATULATIONS, Khaled! Thank you :) (though this was not the point :) ) -- Khaled Hosny Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team Free font developer -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 29, 2010, at 6:53 PM, Khaled Hosny wrote: On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 06:42:42PM -0400, Alan Munn wrote: On Sep 29, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Peter Dyballa wrote: Am 29.09.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Philipp Stephani: reality is approximately as follows: Users who read beginner documents such as lshort don't want to use TeX, but are forced to do so by their advisor. They don't want to read discussions about the pros and cons of various text editors or why Microsoft is evil. Beginners usually know how to visit web sites and how to create simple documents in Microsoft Word (perhaps in three years from now they might not know about the latter, simply because they don't need it). Not a bit more. They don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step-by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. This *might* have been the situation in the so-called first or industrialised world 20 years ago. No, in fact this is very accurate (except maybe the part about being forced by advisors). How often do you actually interact with undergraduate (or even graduate students) Pete? My experience is that they're really good at updating their Facebook status, but things deteriorate quickly from there, exactly as Philipp describes. And I deal with a broad range of students at a major US research university. Well, I myself graduated last month, so... Well, there's always the exception proves the rule :-) (although in my business, we usually say that the exception proves the rule is wrong.) Lest I sound like I think all students are idiots, that wasn't really my point, just that there are many, many students (who might form a good part of the intended audience for lshort) who really have quite limited skills with a computer, and quite limited understanding of how they work.This is despite the fact that they use them all the time. But what they use them for (web browsing, listening to music, IM-ing, facebooking, twittering etc.) is quite a long way from the kind of knowledge that Pete seems to think they have, and much closer to what Philipp described. This also doesn't mean that they can't learn; they can. Many of these turn out to be very adept at using computers in the way we use them once you give them some training, but we shouldn't overestimate their initial abilities. Now for some off topic continuation: I would be willing to bet that *fewer* high school/college students have ever written a computer program now than 20 or 30 years ago. Instead, what gets taught (if anything) is how to use (and I use that term loosely) some applications like Office and perhaps some Creative Suite type things. Programming isn't generally taught partially as a result of GUIs: it's a lot more complicated to write a even a simple program for a Mac or a PC running Windows than it was in the days of everything being command line driven. In fact, despite my having written tens of thousands of lines of Fortran and (eek!) BASIC for engineering purposes on VMS/Sun machines and early PCs, the only software I've written lately is some ruby scripts. Why? I don't have much need to program my Mac, and I certainly don't have the time or inclination to learn how to write a GUI driven program, since it's not necessary for my day to day work. Why should the average person need to learn to program a computer? It's like asking why they should learn to repair their fridge. But of course when a student bumps up against TeX, they are confronted with many things which are truly out of their actual experience with computers (again, for most people). Alan -- Alan Munn am...@gmx.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
lshort needs to be updated, not just because it's missing sections on
Unicode and XeTeX. It's also working under the assumption that people
will *need* to use the command line in order to process a document.
This should be a concern to anyone who's looked at it recently.
And while lshort is a very important document, I'm not convinced that
it's necessarily the right place to go into a detailed explanation
about XeTeX or Unicode. Considering the usage that lshort assumes
(math), XeTeX and Unicode introduce relatively little improvement (and
indeed, even with Unicode math support, I can see reasons why you'd
stay with LaTeX for the time being).
The attractiveness to using LaTeX to exchange documents (in the past,
and to a large extent, even now) is that you can be sure that the
source file can be read by your computer, even if you don't have the
same fonts or language support (EOL and codepage issues aside). XeTeX
introduces many stumbling blocks to this portability, even as it
solves others. Although the switch to Unicode ensures that you don't
run into codepage problems, you now have problems with individual
computer not being able to display certain scripts because the system
fonts don't support it. And although OpenType fonts provide you with
real small caps and fancy contextual alternates, you can only compile
the document on another computer if it also has the fonts you use.
These are all things which I think are outside of the scope of lshort
and concern a different audience (people who need multilingual
support, OpenType feature support, not to mention people who should
probably be using ConTeXT instead).
A short introduction to XeTeX should include discussion of editors,
because not all popular editors support Unicode. TeXworks and TeXmaker
are very good candidates for inclusion because they're easy to use and
are cross-platform. (Regarding Windows UI design, the concept of
separated parent-child windows is not at all unique to TeXworks, just
look at the various incarnations of Windows/MSN Messenger. It even
commits the crime of a program staying active even though you've
closed all windows: you can only quit it from the notification area
icon.)
I honestly think that XeTeX is LaTeX's best bet of going mainstream.
And by that, I mean, actually convert some university students from
using Microsoft Word. The new headaches it introduces into LaTeX are
nothing new in Microsoft Word, and what it gives them is a way to
interact with a document that they last saw (if ever) with WordPerfect
and its Reveal Codes feature. I've described it as HTML+CSS for
documents and strangely enough, it actually attracts some people.
I've run several LaTeX workshops for the linguistics department at my
university, and most people go straight back to Word because seeing
\emph{} makes them physically uncomfortable. The few that stay with
it, they need a little guidance and a lot of information. This is
where a document like an xshort would come in.
BTW, I don't see any benefit to telling people how to enter characters
in their documents. Chances are, if they need them, they know how to
get them. The more important thing is to re-educate those who're
entering characters *the wrong way*, e.g. using a symbol font for
Greek letters.
A few suggestions
-I would like to see mention of RTL and CJK support in the XeTeX
section, the is the main reason why I use XeTeX over (pdf)LaTeX. I'd
also change in the past to in regular LaTeX or something similar.
A current user of LaTeX is unlikely to read lshort.
-I don't think the section on old style numerals or historical
ligatures is necessary, but I would keep the Polish ligature example.
-under How do I get OpenType fonts, I would add OpenType fonts are
included with Windows (XP or newer), and all versions of OS X.
-I would also mention AAT fonts for OS X
The tl;dr version: I agree with the brevity of the current proposed
extension to lshort, but not some of its contents. I do like that it
links to an external resource rather than try to cover a range of
topics which readers of lshort may not be interested in.
-Andy
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 29, 2010, at 6:58 PM, Alan Munn wrote: ... Now for some off topic continuation: I would be willing to bet that *fewer* high school/college students have ever written a computer program now than 20 or 30 years ago. Instead, what gets taught (if anything) is how to use (and I use that term loosely) some applications like Office and perhaps some Creative Suite type things. Programming isn't generally taught partially as a result of GUIs: it's a lot more complicated to write a even a simple program for a Mac or a PC running Windows than it was in the days of everything being command line driven. In fact, despite my having written tens of thousands of lines of Fortran and (eek!) BASIC for engineering purposes on VMS/Sun machines and early PCs, the only software I've written lately is some ruby scripts. Why? I don't have much need to program my Mac, and I certainly don't have the time or inclination to learn how to write a GUI driven program, since it's not necessary for my day to day work. Why should the average person need to learn to program a computer? It's like asking why they should learn to repair their fridge. But of course when a student bumps up against TeX, they are confronted with many things which are truly out of their actual experience with computers (again, for most people). Alan Howdy, Ahhh... while this seems to be getting further and further off topic I really agree with you here. Coming from a Fortran and C procedural background my understanding of OOP is mostly by thinking of objects as structs with lots of function pointers, etc. I've played with TeXShop source but really have a hard time following what is happening; it's quite wonderful magic and things that sound really hard to do are easy while things that don't sound that hard to do are, in fact, difficult. I've only been writing configuration and shell scripts in the near term. I have a nephew (x times removed?) that told me he took programming courses in High School and it turned out to be a class in using MS Office. Sigh... Good Luck, Herb Schulz (herbs at wideopenwest dot com) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 2010-09-30 07:10:07 +0930, Philipp Stephani st_phil...@yahoo.de said: [Beginners] don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step- by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. If TeXworks/TeXshop is included in TeX Live and is good enough, then there is no reason to mention other e! This is the important point, I think. TeXworks is *included* in MiKTeX and TeX Live for all platforms. IMHO, I think any comments that you're going to make along these lines should be MiKTeX and TeX Live both include the TeXworks program for writing your XeTeX and LaTeX documents and viewing their typeset output. You are not restricted to using TeXworks, however; a list of known editors that supports XeTeX are ... I agree with others who said this isn't the place to go into much detail about which editor they're using. Just point them in the right direction, and TeXworks is the easiest to get started with *because they don't have to install anything else*. W -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/29/2010 8:39 PM, Andy Lin wrote: lshort needs to be updated, not just because it's missing sections on Unicode and XeTeX. It's also working under the assumption that people will *need* to use the command line in order to process a document. This should be a concern to anyone who's looked at it recently. I hesitate to jump in, but I think it's worth thinking about (and perhaps saying, in this lshort document) why someone would want to use a TeX-type program, as opposed to MsWord or some such. I'm not convinced it's the right solution for everyone. If all you're doing is writing a five page homework paper, for example, do you really need to typeset it? By the time the prof marks it up for content (and maybe spelling), any typography is going to be obscured by the red ink. Dissertations are, I think, different; but very few people wind up writing dissertations. My own reason for getting into XeLaTeX is that we write multi-lingual grammars, the second of which was Urdu. Trying to produce decent looking Urdu text is a stretch for anyone who isn't a calligrapher, so I think we had a good case for using XeLaTeX for typesetting. (Probably the only other possibility would have been the Middle East version of InDesign.) I suppose some people use *TeX because they like programming approaches to things. (However, I've programmed in at least a dozen programming languages, and there are still design choices in *TeX that I scratch my head over. But yes, Donald Knuth is much smarter than I am, so I'm sure there's a reason.) Maybe a few people use it to produce greeting cards or wedding invitations or something. Mathematicians too, maybe, but there aren't many of them around. So: Who is the audience? And who among the not-already-converted ought to be proselytized? -- Mike Maxwell maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu A library is the best possible imitation, by human beings, of a divine mind, where the whole universe is viewed and understood at the same time... we have invented libraries because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we try to do our best to imitate them. --Umberto Eco -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 29, 2010, at 8:17 PM, Will Robertson wrote: On 2010-09-30 07:10:07 +0930, Philipp Stephani st_phil...@yahoo.de said: [Beginners] don't know what a text file or a text editor is, they have never heard the word Unicode, and they have never used a programming language before. What they need are step- by-step instructions that tell them, in simple words, how to create TeX documents. If TeXworks/TeXshop is included in TeX Live and is good enough, then there is no reason to mention other e! This is the important point, I think. TeXworks is *included* in MiKTeX and TeX Live for all platforms. IMHO, I think any comments that you're going to make along these lines should be ... Howdy, Are you sure about that? I thought it was included as a pre-compiled binary only in windows and Mac OS X. is source included with other OS's? Good Luck, Herb Schulz (herbs at wideopenwest dot com) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/29/2010 9:29 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote: Take a look athttp://www.tug.org/texshowcase/ and be amazed. Yes, I've looked at this (and I'm looking at it now), but again I ask: who should the audience be for this lshort document, and who on the other hand is not an appropriate target for proselytization? Not that that is really representative of what folks do with TeX. Right, and I think that leads to the real question: what kind of document is it worth learning *TeX for? Maybe: books which need to be nicely typeset (probably not your average paperback), pamphlets, some kinds of technical articles (particularly math), multilingual documents where at least one of the languages uses a complex script, dictionaries. (For print dictionaries, I think the best approach is to maintain them in an XML or database format, then automatically translate that into *TeX for typesetting. For the record, that's also how our own multilingual grammars are produced.) For some kinds of fancy, graphics-heavy layouts, maybe InDesign is better suited (I'm just guessing, I haven't done those kinds of layouts, nor have I used InDesign). But trying to convert the *average* High School or college student, who is probably quite well served by MsWord/ OpenOffice Write, may be a waste of time. You can say the output is ugly, but for some purposes that hardly matters; what's important is that it gets the job done. (PowerPoint, on the other hand,...) I just like well organized articles with good hierarchy although I used to (before I retired) do all my exams in LaTeX with some custom macros. I think you're quite unusual. -- Mike Maxwell maxw...@umiacs.umd.edu A library is the best possible imitation, by human beings, of a divine mind, where the whole universe is viewed and understood at the same time... we have invented libraries because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we try to do our best to imitate them. --Umberto Eco -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Herbert Schulz wrote: On Sep 29, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Mike Maxwell wrote: ... Maybe a few people use it to produce greeting cards or wedding invitations or something. Howdy, Take a look at http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/ and be amazed. Not that that is really representative of what folks do with TeX. I just like well organized articles with good hierarchy although I used to (before I retired) do all my exams in LaTeX with some custom macros. Well, related to /that/ (although still OT): IIRC, Jonathan Kew (aka Mr XeTeX) showcased a Christmas card he designed some years ago. I don't have the link anymore, unfortunately ... it might be the one you gave ... or JK can give it to us himself! -- United in adoration of Jesus, fr. michael gilmary, mma Most Holy Trinity Monastery 67 Dugway Road Petersham, MA 01366-9725 www.MaroniteMonks.org -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Alan Munn wrote: Why should the average person need to learn to program a computer? It's like asking why they should learn to repair their fridge. But of course when a student bumps up against TeX, they are confronted with many things which are truly out of their actual experience with computers (again, for most people). The experiences that some of us had years ago are very different from what kids today have (mostly, anyway). When I bought my first computer 25 years ago, I learned a little BASIC, mostly out of curiosity about how one made the darn things run (and decided that I didn't want to be a programmer). I also used a word processor that required one to type in codes for bold, italic, paragraph indentations, and other things; the screen display did not look like the printed output. When, in these latter days, I decided to learn Xe(La)TeX, this background made things easier for me. I suspect that when people who have grown up with only GUIs have a lot of learning to do in order to understand the whole non-WYSIWYG idea and why someone might want to do things that way. lshort or our nascent XeTeX opus needs to take this into account. David -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 29, 2010, at 9:49 PM, Mike Maxwell wrote: On 9/29/2010 9:29 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote: Take a look athttp://www.tug.org/texshowcase/ and be amazed. Yes, I've looked at this (and I'm looking at it now), but again I ask: who should the audience be for this lshort document, and who on the other hand is not an appropriate target for proselytization? [snip] But trying to convert the *average* High School or college student, who is probably quite well served by MsWord/ OpenOffice Write, may be a waste of time. You can say the output is ugly, but for some purposes that hardly matters; what's important is that it gets the job done. (PowerPoint, on the other hand,...) I don't think that's the point of lshort. And I don't think that proselytizing is the point generally. In my department, many of the students are interested in learning TeX because some of the faculty use it. In linguistics (my field), it offers many concrete advantages: automatic numbering/referencing of linguistic examples, automatic aligning of foreign language words/translations, automatic syntactic tree drawing; a full range of logic symbols, easy access to phonetic fonts etc., not to mention other basic academic requirements such as citations and bibliographies. So we don't need to proselytize, the students do that to each other (it also seems to carry a bit of hipster cachet around here). But we shouldn't confuse the converts with the experts: just because you have decided that you should use latex doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing with a computer (see my reply to Pete). So what is needed is up-to-date and accurate information about how to use latex in today's environment. This is what lshort is supposed to do. It's never been my favourite document for various reasons (some of which Andy mentioned in his message), and I don't actually recommend it to people, but it's definitely one of the more widely available documents, and so is worth trying to update. So the problem is not about convincing people do use TeX, but giving them good beginning information so that their experience with it is not alienating. From my viewpoint (as a faculty member dealing with students) this means recommending a simple front end that doesn't involve even knowing what the command line is. TeXWorks is ideal for that. Cross-platform? Even better. Alan -- Alan Munn am...@gmx.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Mike Maxwell wrote: Maybe: books which need to be nicely typeset (probably not your average paperback), pamphlets, some kinds of technical articles (particularly math), multilingual documents where at least one of the languages uses a complex script, dictionaries. All of the above: also, anyone who needs support for OpenType, AAT, or Graphite features. This includes quality typesetting, but also scholarship in some fields, not only those that use complex scripts. Epigraphers and papyrologists, for instance, need access to glyph variants which are best handled with OT stylistic alternates or character variants, since Unicode will encode only one generic form of a character, not all the variants. David -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort[slightly OT]
Heh, Michiel and Khaled, Slow a minute take a deep breath. No need to get nasty! TeX and the use thereof is quite intimidated at first. Their is a big learning curve. That goes also using editors that work with the TeX-System. One has to learn to use each properly. This is the biggest reason that TeX is not the killer typesetting program. What the optimal for a user is a matter of taste. If their is a optimal solution for an OS. I can remember having to have a program for editing and running tex and another for viewing the typeset document. We have come a long way. If a newbie wants to harness the power of Xe(La)TeX, s/he is going to have to learn to harness the power of a integrated system or learn how to integrate the different programs and create o workflow. TeXWorks is about as simple as it can get. I prefer TeXShop. I use to use ITeXMac, but development has stalled. regards Keith. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 28.09.2010 um 02:20 schrieb David J. Perry: As a relative newcomer to Xe(La)TeX, and proponent of Unicode and multilingual computing for 15+ years, I was very surprised by the lack of Unicode support in the TeX world. I think what lshort and other tutorials need is a very clear and unbiased explanation of this situation. I wholeheartedly agree. Something along these lines: What is Unicode? How is it different from traditional TeX? Why has TeX been slow to adopt Unicode? (TeX is a standardized system that predates Unicode; has good tools for math typsetting that meet the needs of many users) ...and is was programmed by an English-speaking mathematician, primarily for the needs of English-speaking mathematicians. If you write a mathematical paper in English, there will be only three kinds of non-ASCII characters: - Typographic characters such as “, — or …, for which TeX (ab)uses ligatures or macros - Math characters, for which TeX has mathchardefs, special font encodings and macros - A few number of accented characters to typeset author names from “foreign” countries, for which the \accent primitive suffices Who needs Unicode + TeX now? (multilingual users mostly, also those who want a larger variety of fonts and OT/AAT support, and the ability to easily interchange data with software outside the traditional TeX orbit; math users probably don't, since Unicode math is still developing) I'd even say everybody needs it or should need it, just like everybody needs Unicode-aware operating systems, text editors, browsers, etc. It has finally become normal to be able to enter every character everywhere; lack of Unicode support is a severe flaw nowadays. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort[slightly OT]
On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 09:50:53AM +0200, Keith J. Schultz wrote: Heh, Michiel and Khaled, Slow a minute take a deep breath. No need to get nasty! Sorry if I offended any one, non was intended. I just wanted to point that no one really cares about UI inconsistency (except UI nazis, of course :) as long as it does the job, and TeXWorks seems to do its job pretty well (I don't use it myself, I rarely typeset anything but quick tests). Regards, Khaled -- Khaled Hosny Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team Free font developer -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Hi, this discussion does indeed seem to get hot. (Wrong adjective?) The arguments concerning user expectance and user experience of windows UI have been exchanged, (The simples solution -- porting kile to windoof and using a pdf viewer which doesn't grabhold its file -- is of course out of reach. ;-)) and no agreement has been achieved. Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? (When I see 20 new mails in my xetex-inbox, I hope it's something interesting and I prefer to keep it thus.) Thanks Toscho PS: My mustard (translated by word from German) to this OT-discussion: Windoof user have to be hardened by ugly UI. Every time I open a windoof explorer in Vista on my mothers laptop, I get a window, which doesn't show anything useful despite taking up half the screen. And my experience is, that windoof users 1. hesitate to use ubuntu because 2. they think they don't know how to use it but 3. do it self-surprisingly quite well. Am 28.09.2010 10:13, schrieb Alain Delmotte: Hi! Le 28/09/2010 7:42, Michiel Kamermans a écrit : On 9/27/2010 8:53 PM, Khaled Hosny wrote: You know, because Windows has the most consistent user interface an OS ever had. (From some one who is yet to see two native Windows applications that behave the same) Yeah, yeah, look, my name isn't Gates, but in windows the idea is, and virtually every applicaiton sticks to this, if there's multiple windows, you get them INSIDE a master frame. I'm not going to argue that every single app developer went yes windows design style guide, I will unquestioningly do what you say but the vast majority of important applications obeys this simple unwritten rule. I never said TeXWork was a bad program - it's great. But i annoys the hell out of me that it launches two applications when it says it's one. You close the right application, the left application doesn't close. Wtf? I thought I was running one program? So it's two applications... you close the left applicaiton, the right one does close. Again, wtf? So it IS one program? This is not good design for a windows application. It doesn't matter that some other people write good programs with bad UIs on windows, too. A worthwhile program uses the visual semantics that come with the OS it's made for. Stick both the windows side by side in a master frame when the code detects it's being compiled for Windows, make them visible and invisible via checkboxes in view/window-source and view/window-final or something, and presto, the entire gripe's gone. Now it's a cross platform editor that respects the user expectation of the vast majority of people who are going to be new to TeX. Have you used Microsoft Office lately? When you open a Word document and a second or create a second, it creates a second separate windows!! At least by default. (Could be an option to have only one main windows) Nowadays, there are almost more programs creating several windows than programs working in one main windows with sub-windows. Some people love TeXWork because it's a better alternative to everything they tried before, but that's because *they've tried everything else and didn't like it*. It's almost impossible to miss that means you're hardly new at TeX, but that you're a long time user who's sampled everything there is to sample over an extensive period of time and settled on TeXWorks because it lets you get the job done. That's great, if TeXWorks is where you ended up, awesome, it's a really good program, even on windows. It also breaks the idea of a single application that people that are new to TeX, and use windows, will be used to. When you're new to something, you don't want a program that behaves completely different from all the other big programs you use. You want to give someone new to TeX a familiar base first, so they don't tune out going this is so radically different that I cannot get comfortable with it. Then, once you're familiar enough with it to realise that even a plain text editor on a command prompt works just fine (even if it's more work), looking at better editors that take away the UI familiarity is no longer objectionable. It's basically common sense. Familiarity + a little bit of new, then shift focus until the new is familiar, then drop the original hook you needed to convince people it was worth getting familiar with the new. Under Windows I do not think there is a TeX program working only with one window for editing and viewing. Saying that viewing with Adobe Reader, from let say notepad2, is not breaking the rule, is correct only because there are really two programs, but for the new user to TeX it is much more difficult than using TeXworks which manages everything. You do not have to create or parameter builds (in TeXnicCenter) or something else. (and having the system close the first Reader window before (re-)compiling!!! like it is now) In a new edition of a French book to come out
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel:
Can we now come back to the beginning problem:
Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in
lshort?
Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) –
with its AUCTeX extension. One can either set all TEX files as UTF-8
encoded or set the environment variable LC_CTYPE to something.UTF-8.
AUCTeX additionally supports to record the TeX compiler variant ({pdf|
Xe|Lua}[La]TeX, simpdftex, etc.) or a differing encoding or whether
it's the root file or one of the included files of a given root
file. It's an open and free solution available everywhere, even on MS
platforms and on platforms without a windowing system.
PS: My mustard (translated by word from German) to this OT-discussion:
2 ¢
Windoof user have to be hardened by ugly UI.
What about losedos?
--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen
Pete
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.
- Sigmund Freud
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 Peter Dyballa peter_dyba...@web.de wrote: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x √ the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) √ with its AUCTeX extension. I support this. Regards Janusz -- , dr hab. Janusz S. Bien, prof. UW - Uniwersytet Warszawski (Katedra Lingwistyki Formalnej) Prof. Janusz S. Bien - Warsaw University (Department of Formal Linguistics) jsb...@uw.edu.pl, jsb...@mimuw.edu.pl, http://fleksem.klf.uw.edu.pl/~jsbien/ -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 28.09.2010 um 21:16 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. It doesn't help if you have to learn LaTeX/ConTeXt *and* Emacs at the same time. TeXworks seems to be a modern, Unicode-capable solution, and AFAIK it is included in TeX Live. Thus the recommendation should be TeX Shop on OS X and TeXworks on Windows and Linux. AFAIK TeXworks has been modelled after TeX Shop, which should simplify the explanations. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 28-09-2010 21:44, Philipp Stephani wrote: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. It doesn't help if you have to learn LaTeX/ConTeXt *and* Emacs at the same time. TeXworks seems to be a modern, Unicode-capable solution, and AFAIK it is included in TeX Live. Yes, it is. And it is also included in MiKTeX. Best regards, José Carlos Santos -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 28.09.2010 um 22:44 schrieb Philipp Stephani: Am 28.09.2010 um 21:16 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. Beginner does not mean the same as dumb user. By learning to use accelerating keyboard shortcuts one gains more time to learn TeX dialects and other details. Having to push the mouse around steals ones spare time. (Which you can waste in GNU Emacs as well, since it has hierarchic menus, even when running as a non- windowing programme, and it also has a tool-bar.) And, as with the TeX dialects, it's not necessary to learn the 12,345 keyboard shortcuts. (Do you know all the thousands of LaTeX packages and their options? Are you able to write or understand a TeX macro? Wouldn't it have been much easier then to learn as a beginner just one application, MS Word? It even comes with ready to use text templates! Just fill in, and you're done. Oh, yes: don't forget to save and backup! This is probably the most complicated thing.) -- Mit friedvollen Grüßen Pete The wise man said: Never argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Windoof user have to be hardened by ugly UI. What about losedos? I am (mostly) a Windows user but am neither stupid nor a loser. All OSs have their imperfections, people have different reasons for what they use, so let's stay on task here without insults. David -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Sep 28, 2010, at 4:42 PM, Peter Dyballa wrote: Am 28.09.2010 um 22:44 schrieb Philipp Stephani: Am 28.09.2010 um 21:16 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 28.09.2010 um 16:20 schrieb Tobias Schoel: Can we now come back to the beginning problem: Which way of creating unicode-encoded .tex-documents to propose in lshort? Using GNU Emacs 23.x – the Unicode Emacs (and any of its variants) – with its AUCTeX extension. I use the same technology, but I would never recommend it to beginners. Beginner does not mean the same as dumb user. By learning to use accelerating keyboard shortcuts one gains more time to learn TeX dialects and other details. Having to push the mouse around steals ones spare time. (Which you can waste in GNU Emacs as well, since it has hierarchic menus, even when running as a non-windowing programme, and it also has a tool-bar.) ... Howdy, I agree... however simple front ends like TeXShop and TeXworks also allow you to use the keyboard alone to do many things, including Command Completion to easily generate full environments and easily fill them in and engine/tools in TeXShop/TeXworks to do complex processing. I know emacs'en can certainly do that my point is that these simple front ends can grow with the user so they don't need to use a ``clicky interface.'' And they do UTF-8 just fine. Good Luck, Herb Schulz (herbs at wideopenwest dot com) -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 20:11 schrieb Khaled Hosny:
On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 10:26:47PM +0200, Marco wrote:
From the text:
Some editors support digraphs, two letters that are combined into on
character. (In \wi{Vim} \texttt{ctrl-k o:} will be transformed into an
\o, \texttt{ctrl-k JA} will created the mirrored R used by a russian
toy store chain.)\marginpar{How do you do this in emacs?}
Emacs has a whole set of various Input methods, including a TeX method
that mimics the traditional TeX syntax for letters with accents and
diacritics. Sure you want to enter this topic? ;-)
Exactly, I don't see the point of discussing input methods in such a
short document; if I want to enter Unicode text I surely know a way to
do so or I can look for it in my editor/OS documentation.
After what I learned during the last few days I have to agree.
If you want to type Unicode characters, RTFM.
Axel
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 19:36 schrieb Yves Codet:
Hello.
Le 26 sept. 2010 à 15:56, Axel Kielhorn a écrit :
A small detail about your XEsample.tex.
\begin{russian}
могу я Вам чем-л. помочь?% I hope this isn't a terrible curse or an insult,
never trust a dictionary
\end{russian}
It's not; it only means may I help you with anything?.
That's what my dictionary said. (But I do know Monty Python:-)
But you might want to capitalise the first letter and expand the
abbreviation, which would become:
Могу я Вам чем-либо помочь?
I was irritated by the л. thanks for spelling it out.
Axel
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 19:11 schrieb Michiel Kamermans: On 9/26/2010 6:56 AM, Axel Kielhorn wrote: I have to disagree, Vim and emacs (or should that be Emacs?) are available on Windows as well. (Maybe not used that often.) While they're available for windows, windows users don't use them. Only people who transcend the OS label because they use multiple operating systems and have learned to like vim or emacs enough to want to use it on all their operating systems will also use these on windows. Vim is one of the first programs I install when I have to work on a Windows computer. But I can't offer that to a normal Windows user. Windows users use things like textpad (although because it still refuses to move to unicode, much less so than a few years ago) I have Wordpad which says it can write Unicode files. notepad++, notepad2, ultraedit, and all those they started as windows programs so every windows user recommends them to their windows user friends. Is there any editor with LaTeX support? How about TeXworks? I know that TeXniccenter does not support Unicode. (This is what lshort recommends) Another suggestion is LEd but it seems to be pre-Unicode as well. Axel -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 19:03 schrieb Michiel Kamermans: This touches on a recent thread on a primer for XeLaTeX, which ended in http://wiki.xelatex.org/ (which I did not forget about to everyone who might suspect I have, conferences and moving house are currently robbing me of all my spare time) I hope it does, I'm linking to it:-) And I hope to put XEsample there. Axel -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
- Ursprüngliche Mail Von: Axel Kielhorn a.kielh...@web.de An: Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms xetex@tug.org Gesendet: Montag, den 27. September 2010, 16:45:18 Uhr Betreff: Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort Am 26.09.2010 um 19:11 schrieb Michiel Kamermans: Windows users use things like textpad (although because it still refuses to move to unicode, much less so than a few years ago) I have Wordpad which says it can write Unicode files. Notepad has been able to write UTF-16 and UTF-8 files for decades. notepad++, notepad2, ultraedit, and all those they started as windows programs so every windows user recommends them to their windows user friends. Is there any editor with LaTeX support? Another question: do beginners need an editor with LaTeX support? I don't think it is wise to recommend a large, complex editor like TeXnicCenter or Vim to newcomers. Most good programming books take care not to overwhelm newbies with complicated editors or IDEs. Maybe it would be easiest to start with plain Notepad. If they start writing longer documents, they can still switch to a more elaborate editor. How about TeXworks? I know that TeXniccenter does not support Unicode. (This is what lshort recommends) Another suggestion is LEd but it seems to be pre-Unicode as well. Which is barely acceptable given that the last non-Unicode Windows system was released ten years ago. Indeed I think lshort.pdf should not recommend any editor that is not Unicode-enabled. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
- Ursprüngliche Mail Von: Axel Kielhorn a.kielh...@web.de An: Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms xetex@tug.org Gesendet: Montag, den 27. September 2010, 16:46:00 Uhr Betreff: Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort Am 26.09.2010 um 18:10 schrieb Peter Dyballa: Am 26.09.2010 um 15:56 schrieb Axel Kielhorn: I have to disagree, Vim and emacs (or should that be Emacs?) are available on Windows as well. (Maybe not used that often.) It's actually GNU Emacs and XEmacs. There are also specialised variants, based on GNU Emacs, like NTEmacs, Carbon Emacs, NS or Cocoa Emacs, AppKit Emacs, Emacs.app,... Not One Emacs to rule them all!? It's not that bad. Carbon Emacs, Cocoa Emacs and Emacs.app (probably the others as well) are obsolete since GNU Emacs started to provide native Mac support. Aquamacs is pretty popular, though (like mvim). No, it's more than that. Compose o / will produce ø, compose L / will produce Ł, compose Y = gives ¥, compose o c will give ©, and many, many more combinations! - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose-Taste This isn't good news: quote The compose key is known as Multi_key in the X Window System. In XFree86 and X.Org Server, many keyboard layouts have a variant that maps Multi_key to some key, usually (on PC keyboards) to either of the Windows keys (most often the Menu key, since Start is already used to open the start menu), or sometimes Shift + AltGr[1] or Shift + Right-Ctrl. It can also be specified in XkbOptions (for example, compose:rwin). Multi_key can also be assigned with the xmodmap(1) utility /quote In short: Everyone is doing it differently. And many Linux users aren't aware of the Compse key; I think it is not mapped to any of the special keys in default Ubuntu installations. Again, all this shouldn't be explained in lshort.pdf unless you are planning to write dozens of pages about Unicode input methods. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/27/2010 7:45 AM, Axel Kielhorn wrote: Is there any editor with LaTeX support? How about TeXworks? I know that TeXniccenter does not support Unicode. (This is what lshort recommends) Another suggestion is LEd but it seems to be pre-Unicode as well. I install notepad2 on every windows machine I use. In part because it doesn't require installing (download, run. no questions asked) and in part because it does everything a tex editor needs to do for me. That said: yes. TeXworks is decent, but violates the windows user experience of one window per application. It spawns two separate windows and that breaks the magic right there. On MacOS and *nix that's actually fine, but on windows if it's not all contained, it's a bad program. However, there is Texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/), which I used for quite a while. It understands unicode, and is set up to be UTF-8 by default for a few version numbers now. It also has a bucketload of separate build commands for doing different chains like latex + bable - ps, or xelatex+makeindex - pdf, etc. It also has a quickbuild function where you can input your own command sequence for customised builds. It was rather useful until I discovered that I was way too busy looking at what things would look like instead of first just writing the entire document and then just tweaking minor things. (Unless I need to typeset extensive math, for which I will still fire up Texmaker, I just use a plain text editor these days) - Mike Pomax Kamermans nihongoresources.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Microsoft's recommendations on the UI of programs are only recommendations. If the task requires it, two windows are fine. This is what you would have if you previewed in Acrobat Reader anyway -- two apps but also two windows. It's been a while, but my memory is that many of Adobe's apps, such as PhotoShop, have multiple windows, especially if you detach the palettes. If you recommend Unicode editors in xlshort, I think TeXWorks should be included. --Barry TeXworks is decent, but violates the windows user experience of one window per application. It spawns two separate windows and that breaks the magic right there. On MacOS and *nix that's actually fine, but on windows if it's not all contained, it's a bad program. - Mike Pomax Kamermans nihongoresources.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/27/2010 11:23 AM, Barry MacKichan wrote: Microsoft's recommendations on the UI of programs are only recommendations. If the task requires it, two windows are fine. This is what you would have if you previewed in Acrobat Reader anyway -- two apps but also two windows. Yes, they are, and moving away from that recommendation for anything other than things CANNOT be done unless we use two windows is not understanding the user experience that windows users expect =) Seeing the preview in acrobat viewer is seeing two different applications, with one window per application. This is fine, because that's how applications should behave in the world of a windows user. You shouldn't use *nix UI principles in windows in the same way that you don't use windows UI principles in MacOS, etc. It's been a while, but my memory is that many of Adobe's apps, such as PhotoShop, have multiple windows, especially if you detach the palettes. If you recommend Unicode editors in xlshort, I think TeXWorks should be included. These are still inside the master application window. You can move these around, but they don't go outside the application frame, such as for programs that have been complied for multiple operating systems without using OS specific look-and-feel management, such as Gimp or Inkscape. TeXWork should be recommended. But I wouldn't recommend it as main TeX editor on windows just yet, because it refuses to behave like every other application I use on it. That makes it a good alternative if the following editors aren't good enough for you : and then a list of real for windows programs. I'll happily endorse it as primary editor on MacOS, though, because there the styling matches the standard application experience. - Mike Pomax Kamermans nihongoresources.com -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 11:44:08AM -0700, Michiel Kamermans wrote: On 9/27/2010 11:23 AM, Barry MacKichan wrote: Microsoft's recommendations on the UI of programs are only recommendations. If the task requires it, two windows are fine. This is what you would have if you previewed in Acrobat Reader anyway -- two apps but also two windows. Yes, they are, and moving away from that recommendation for anything other than things CANNOT be done unless we use two windows is not understanding the user experience that windows users expect =) Seeing the preview in acrobat viewer is seeing two different applications, with one window per application. This is fine, because that's how applications should behave in the world of a windows user. You shouldn't use *nix UI principles in windows in the same way that you don't use windows UI principles in MacOS, etc. It's been a while, but my memory is that many of Adobe's apps, such as PhotoShop, have multiple windows, especially if you detach the palettes. If you recommend Unicode editors in xlshort, I think TeXWorks should be included. These are still inside the master application window. You can move these around, but they don't go outside the application frame, such as for programs that have been complied for multiple operating systems without using OS specific look-and-feel management, such as Gimp or Inkscape. TeXWork should be recommended. But I wouldn't recommend it as main TeX editor on windows just yet, because it refuses to behave like every other application I use on it. That makes it a good alternative if the following editors aren't good enough for you : and then a list of real for windows programs. I'll happily endorse it as primary editor on MacOS, though, because there the styling matches the standard application experience. You know, because Windows has the most consistent user interface an OS ever had. (From some one who is yet to see two native Windows applications that behave the same) -- Khaled Hosny Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team Free font developer -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
David Perry wrote: Here are a couple of suggestions and some typos to fix: The main feature is the extended character set; [colon not comma] Which did you intend, David ? You used a semi-colon (;) but proposed a colon (:). Philip Taylor -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 09/25/2010 06:44 PM, Axel Kielhorn wrote:
Hello!
Some weeks ago I suggested getting information about XeTeX into lshort.
Well, here is the first draft.
[...]
I am open for suggestions and corrections (Note that I am not a native speaker.)
Hi Axel,
if you allow me a suggestion I'd rather write “It's all Ελληνικά”
instead of “It’s all γρηηκ to me”.
If you are using pure LaTeX, this would go “It's all
\foreignlanguage{greek}{Ellhnik'a} to me”. This use of a fancier font
that will not scare newcomers away.
I hope it helps,
Pablo
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 06:13 schrieb David Perry: Some editors, _mainly on Linux,_ support digraphs, two letters that are combined into one [not on] character. The compose function is hardly ever used on OS X or Windows; He doesn't refer to the Compose key, but to editor support, which is platform-independent. The Compose key could of course be mentioned as well. But the input sequences of both the Compose key and RFC 1345 aren't digraphs in all cases. -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 02:43 schrieb Vafa Khalighi: Exuse us but I think this is too short and does not help anyone. The mailinglist stripped your attachment about the use of RTL languages. Since I'm a LGC[1] guy, I won't be able to write anything about RTL or CJK, except for the fact that it is possible with \XeTeX. [1] Well, I failed the Graecum thus I never advanced to the Hebraicum. Axel -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 01:17 schrieb Peter Dyballa:
Instead of the not included DejaVu font family you might like to mention GNU
Free fonts or Linux Libertine/Biolinum O, which are included in TeX Live.
You have a point here, I'll switch to Linux Libertine.
Some operating systems or application offer input systems or input
methods which allow to enter non-standard characters.
XeTeX also supports UTF-16 encodings. \XeTeXdefaultencoding{CharsetName} and
\XeTeXinputencoding{CharsetName} can set many others.
IIRC anything but UTF-8 and UTF-16 is strongly discouraged.
Me, I don't know of any font that switches typographic conventions based on
the script and language selected, what usually happens is that a different
set features is activated for the selected combination.
GNU Emacs offers input methods. One of them, always available, is C-q some
number, and the number can be octal, decimal, or hexadecimal.
You just have to memorize the Unicodecode:-)
Don't forget to mention that XeTeX does not load any font files but relies on
a (modern) system's font service to deliver them upon request!
The font loading is done by fontspec.
Axel
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 06:13 schrieb David Perry:
lshort is meant to be, well, short. Having even this much will give those
unacquainted with xe(la)tex some idea of what it's all about, and the
reference to the wiki will (I hope) be a good source of additional
information.
This is meant as a showcase:
The following is possible, now RTFM.
Here are a couple of suggestions and some typos to fix:
The main feature is the extended character set; [colon not comma] a font may
contain Latin, Greek and Cyrillic [note caps] characters and the
corresponding ligatures.
Thanks for the correction.
You do allude to the various OpenType features that are available with
Xe(La)TeX, but I think another sentence or two would be helpful. TeX has
long supported some typographic refinements, such as true small caps, and
many people use TeX because they care about high-quality typography.
Directing their attention to other OT features such as different types of
numerals, forms for all caps typesetting, etc. would help them understand the
true benefits of OT, aside from its linguistic support.
Yes, the different numerals are a good example.
Some editors, _mainly on Linux,_ support digraphs, two letters that are
combined into one [not on] character. The compose function is hardly ever
used on OS X or Windows; the only instance of which I am aware is the
OpenOffice extension that provides this facility.
I have to disagree, Vim and emacs (or should that be Emacs?) are available on
Windows as well. (Maybe not used that often.)
Is the compose feature you mention the same as dead keys?
On a Mac I can type \texttt{option-u u} to get an ü (which may sound silly,
since I have it on the keyboard, but I can type \texttt{option-u e} to get an ë
which is not on the keyboard.
4.8.2: I suggest a brief mention of polyglossia and a cross-reference to the
other section where you discuss it in more detail.
Under It's all Greek to me, capitalize Unicode, Latin, Greek, Russian and
Hebrew. advantage of using should be advantage to using. Also, if you
are going to explain \newfontfamily with polyglossia, I think you need to
explain polyglossia's language-switching commands also, even if briefly.
I will look into it.
Axel
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
On 9/26/2010 9:56 AM, Axel Kielhorn wrote:
Is the compose feature you mention the same as dead keys?
No. I have read that on some Linux systems one can type a vowel, press
a compose key, and then an accent mark, the result is the vowel with
accent. I myself don't use Linux, so I'm sure the many Linux folks here
will correct me if I've got that wrong. A deadkey inserts the accent
(sometimes without showing any visual indicator); the accent then
appears over the following letter.
On a Mac I can type \texttt{option-u u} to get an ü
Mac OS has the best systemwide support for non-English characters, and
has for a long time. Windows provides only a very awkward ALT key
method that requires typing decimal or hex numbers.
David
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Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
No. I have read that on some Linux systems one can type a vowel, press a compose key, and then an accent mark, the result is the vowel with accent. The actual order is Compose, accent, vowel (or consonant, for that matter). The accent here is usually an approximative ASCII equivalent to the real accent mark: for example, Sun keyboards (that actually have a key labelled Compose) used to use a single quote to input an acute accent, inverted quote for a grave accent, etc. Arthur -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 15:56 schrieb Axel Kielhorn: Is the compose feature you mention the same as dead keys? No. Compose is a key available only from the X Window System. After hitting Compose (it is not a modifier key), you can enter a known key sequence to get a non-ASCII character; e.g., Compose - - - is converted to an em dash (—). Dead keys are available as well, but the Compose mechanism provides access to more characters (because it is not limited to a single combination of modifiers, or a combination of a dead key and a base character). It is more comparable to ISO-1345 input in Emacs/Vim, but acts on a different level (windowing system vs. editor). -- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
Re: [XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort
Am 26.09.2010 um 15:56 schrieb Axel Kielhorn:
Some operating systems or application offer input systems or input
methods which allow to enter non-standard characters.
XeTeX also supports UTF-16 encodings. \XeTeXdefaultencoding{CharsetName} and
\XeTeXinputencoding{CharsetName} can set many others.
IIRC anything but UTF-8 and UTF-16 is strongly discouraged.
What about UTF-32? It is quite rare for text documents, but nevertheless an
official Unicode encoding.
Me, I don't know of any font that switches typographic conventions based on
the script and language selected, what usually happens is that a different
set features is activated for the selected combination.
GNU Emacs offers input methods. One of them, always available, is C-q some
number, and the number can be octal, decimal, or hexadecimal.
You just have to memorize the Unicodecode:-)
There are lots of other methods as well. The default input method (to be
activated via C-\) is RFC-1345, which seems to be the method that Vim uses for
its C-k sequences. C-q is just the most basic method.
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