2012/9/12 Peter Dyballa <peter_dyba...@web.de>: > Hello! > > To me it seems that some problems with XeTeX come from using inappropriate > fonts, fonts which don't have the glyphs needed, don't support a particular > script or the language which will be used with the particular script to > typeset the text. Partly it's the fault of the users not exploring the fonts > in depth. I also think that demanding this preparatory work from the XeTeX > user can be too much. > > Why not implementing this check, whether the font will work for the purpose > intended, into XeTeX? Not as a regular step in preparing the output - this > would take too much time and every time - but as an option that only outputs > a judgement on the font. A verbose option would then make XeTeX report > deficiencies of the font and, maybe, recommend another font(s). > > I think a set of empirical rules, heuristics, would suffice: checking the > presence of necessary features and tables, emitting a warning when a ligature > is missing... > > Could this be an useful enhancement? > Yes, it would be useful. This could even be implemented in TeX, Polyglossia alrady makes some basic checks. However, such simple check cannot detect that the ligature exists but the shape is not correct. And verification of completness of any Indic script will be very difficult. Take for instance Sanskrit ligature ktrya. It is composed of four consonants that are glued together by three viramas, ie altogether 7 unicode codepoints. Hindi requires about 230 conjuncts. Each of the 38 consonants and 230 conjuncts can be accompanied by one of eleven dependent vowels and optionally also by anusvara or candrabindu or visarga (Sanskrit containd three additional vowels). I have seen fonts where all these combinations produce something but many of them are wrong. I think the only solution is to have good sample text that will test all features, typeset it and look at the result.
> -- > Greetings > > Pete > > Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, but set a man on fire and > he'll be warm for the rest of his life. > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: > http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Zdeněk Wagner http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/ http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
