OpenType and XeConTeXt

OpenType and XeConTeXt

[Steffen Wolfrum]

Hi,

using ConTeXt with XeTeX seems to be an nice option for us MacOSX users.
But I get always confused with the names for these rich features like  
Style Option, Ligatures, Variants.

I mean: how do I know how many variants and style options a font has  
and how they and their ligatures etc. want to be called?
In plain ConTeXt (for the 255 characters) we can use \showfont[...]  
and \showcharacters in order to know how to call the specific  
characters/glyphs. But what about OpenType?

Peeking at the LaTeX side of XeTeX, I saw that they have created a  
packages called fontspec which seems to give better access to all (?)  
if these options.

What about us? Is there help also for XeConTeXt?

Thank you,
Steffen

Re: OpenType and XeConTeXt

[Adam Lindsay]

Steffen Wolfrum wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> using ConTeXt with XeTeX seems to be an nice option for us MacOSX users.
> But I get always confused with the names for these rich features like 
> Style Option, Ligatures, Variants.
> 
> I mean: how do I know how many variants and style options a font has and 
> how they and their ligatures etc. want to be called?
> In plain ConTeXt (for the 255 characters) we can use \showfont[...] and 
> \showcharacters in order to know how to call the specific 
> characters/glyphs. But what about OpenType?

\showfont is limited to unicode's 0-255 slots, but it's functional:
  \showfont["Book Antiqua"]

> Peeking at the LaTeX side of XeTeX, I saw that they have created a 
> packages called fontspec which seems to give better access to all (?) if 
> these options.
> 
> What about us? Is there help also for XeConTeXt?

I find that the lcdf typetools are a tremendous help:
 > otfinfo -f ~/Library/Fonts/WarnockPro-Regular.otf

aalt    Access All Alternates
c2sc    Small Capitals From Capitals
case    Case-Sensitive Forms
cpsp    Capital Spacing
cswh    Contextual Swash
dlig    Discretionary Ligatures
dnom    Denominators
fina    Terminal Forms
frac    Fractions
hist    Historical Forms
kern    Kerning
liga    Standard Ligatures
lnum    Lining Figures
numr    Numerators
onum    Oldstyle Figures
ordn    Ordinals
ornm    Ornaments
pnum    Proportional Figures
salt    Stylistic Alternates
sinf    Scientific Inferiors
size    Optical Size
smcp    Small Capitals
sups    Superscript
tnum    Tabular Figures
zero    Slashed Zero


and I can test the features with:
  \showfont["Warnock Pro: +smcp"]

Fontspec is an impressive piece of work, but I think it's driven much 
more by the 'possible' than by requirements. My time constraints (i.e., 
daughter) won't let me do that sort of exploratory coding anymore. I can 
try and help out with concrete requests, though.

[I feel like a lot of the stuff I've done in this space has been 
released into a vacuum, and that few people are actually making stuff 
with OpenType and/or XeConTeXt.]

adam
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept.     atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk
  Lancaster University, InfoLab21        +44(0)1524/510.514
  Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK             Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Re: OpenType and XeConTeXt

[Charles Doherty]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1985 bytes --]


On 14 Feb 2006, at 12:46, Adam Lindsay wrote:

> [I feel like a lot of the stuff I've done in this space has been
> released into a vacuum, and that few people are actually making stuff
> with OpenType and/or XeConTeXt.]


Dear Adam,

You helped me get XeConTeXt up and running and I have been quietly  
using it and have great pleasure in doing so. Thank you very much  
again. I suppose it is, as is the case with a lot of areas, that  you  
don't hear from people until they have a problem. Which brings me to  
this. I have lost my settings for XeConTeXt during upgrades of TeX/ 
ConTeXt and have recovered by using the information on the  
ConTeXtwiki but recently this does not seem to work anymore (or  
perhaps I have done something stupid). I noticed new advice in a  
recent e-mail:
> On Feb 12, 2006, at 8:49 PM, Steffen Wolfrum wrote:
>
>
>> This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592-2.2-0.99b (Web2C 7.5.3)
>> (WARNING: translate-file "natural.tcx" ignored)
>> ---! /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/web2c/cont-en.fmt was
>> written by pdfetex
>>
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> That's the problem. If you want both xetex and pdftex, you need to
> have two different format-files, both called cont-en.fmt. They need
> to be in two different subdirectories:
> /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/web2c/pdfetex [for pdfetex]
> /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/web2c/xetex   [for xetex]
>
> Remove the cont-*.fmt files in the .../web2c directory and regenerate
> the formats with texexec.
>

but trying this has not worked for me either. In an e-mail Jonathan  
Kew suggested he might look into creating an installation script for  
XeTeX and I encouraged him to do so. In the meantime do you know if  
the procedure for getting XeConTeX up and running has changed and if  
so what should I do. I have an iMac G5 10.4.4 and the latest TeX  
using Gerben's installer.

There is at least this voice in the vacuum ready to bother you.

Thanks,
Charlie

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 4588 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 139 bytes --]

_______________________________________________
ntg-context mailing list
ntg-context@ntg.nl
http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context