Re: Ancient Greek

["Adam Lindsay" <atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk>]

Steffen Wolfrum said this at Sun, 22 Aug 2004 13:10:28 +0200:

>As far as I understood I order to typeset text in xetex you have to use
>basically plain TeX-commands.

XeTeX is another TeX engine. So it responds to (plain) TeX commands.

LaTeX and ConTeXt are macro packages that are written in TeX. So your
LaTeX or ConTeXt commands are eventually just translated into TeX
commands as well. MacOSX LaTeX people already have xelatex going. It's
not terribly hard to get "texexec --tex=xetex" to work, either. (Hint: do
"xeinitex cont-en" and use the resulting cont-en.xfmt file.) 
Colors, graphics, and transformations need \specials, and there are some
font quoting tricks to do, as well.

>So, when you say you're working on XeTeX drivers for ConTeXt does that
>mean that I can write normal context code but typeset with XeTeX instead
>of pdfeTeX?

Exactly.

>That would be great. Because my aim is to include polytonic greek quotes
>in my context document, and I setup an ideal context environment for my
>publications already and don't want to start with plain TeX again.

:)

>So if my understanding is right, when do you think XeTeX will be
>available for us ConTeXt users?

Ah, that would be why I asked about *your* requirements and timeframe.
This is an avocation for me--I have a PhD thesis to write soon, so I
don't want to commit to a timeframe for a side (albeit interesting)
project. I can help you get started, and I will concentrate on the
features you want most, but to do that, I need your requirements.

I think Hans will agree that real users drive things forward, and that's
what I see xecontext needing.
-- 
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 Adam T. Lindsay                      atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk
 Computing Dept, Lancaster University   +44(0)1524/594.537
 Lancaster, LA1 4YR, UK             Fax:+44(0)1524/593.608
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