From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/17608 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: r.ermers@hccnet.nl Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: (Con)TeX(t), Unicode and accented characters Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:40 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <47395.62.251.0.62.1103615800.squirrel@62.251.0.62> References: <41C72FD6.3030807@email.si> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1103615818 32180 80.91.229.6 (21 Dec 2004 07:56:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:56:58 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Tue Dec 21 08:56:50 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1Cget0-0008Bb-00 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:50 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 889F21279B; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:49 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (ronja.vet.uu.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 22807-05; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:48 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id A170612793; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:48 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC20C12793 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:47 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (ronja.vet.uu.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 23094-01 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:47 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from smtp10.hccnet.nl (unknown [62.251.0.13]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 736721278D for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:47 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from webmail.hccnet.nl by smtp10.hccnet.nl via webmail30.hccnet.nl [62.251.0.76] with ESMTP id iBL7ueTW020286 (8.12.10/2.05); Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:40 +0100 (MET) Original-Received: from 62.251.0.62 (SquirrelMail authenticated user r.ermers); by webmail.hccnet.nl with HTTP; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:56:40 +0100 (MET) In-Reply-To: <41C72FD6.3030807@email.si> Original-To: mojca.miklavec@guest.arnes.si, "mailing list for ConTeXt users" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.5.1 [CVS] X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:17608 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context:17608 Mojca, In reply to your question: > I don't really understand how accented characters are typeset in > (Con)TeX(t). One of the main reasons for switching to LaTeX (maybe 8 > years ago) someone mentioned was: "You don't have to worry about accent= ed > characters. You can make any accented character and it will work all ov= er > the world." (We actually did have lots of problems with MS Word and web > browsers at that time.) And it was true. You know that all characters in a font have a number. If you type a, the = font mechanism makes sure that you see an a. In reality the font shows yo= u the character that is put on the numerical position of a. In the font d= ingbats for example, the character on that position is not an a, but a sy= mbol. In Latex the combination \"{a} can mean two things: 1. in most fonts: show the charachter on the a given numerical position, = which means that there is one character =E4. 2. in some other fonts \"{a} means: combine " with a and make an =E4. Thi= s means that " is combined with the character on the numerical position o= f a. TeX does this very well and thus construes very acceptable diacritic= al signs like \"{q}, \d{o}, \v{o}, which do not exist in regular fonts. If you have a font which contains \"{q}, \d{o} or some other special char= acters, you may instruct TeX not to create the character, but rather to s= how the contents of a given numerical position in that font. That's what = the .enc and .fd files under Latex are for. That's also the reason there are, or used to be, special fonts for Polish= an Czech and other languages: they contain predefined characters in one = single numerical position, e.g. \v{s} and \v{c} that TeX does not have to= create anew from two signs. Kind regards, Robert