Thanks Sanjoy  for the exhaustive infos.
I knew the relations among Tex, LaTeX and ConTeXt but couldn't  
understand at which level XeTeX was positioned.

So, I was interested in XeTeX because (if I understood clearly) I can  
use resident fonts. Is it true?
What I have to do in order to do this? Use the fonts in the source?  
Add a special command?


Thanks a lot
Best
-a-



On 5 Apr 2007, at 15:23, Sanjoy Mahajan wrote:

>> What does this exactly mean (from wikipedia)?
>> "XeTeX works well with both LaTeX and ConTeXt."
>
> XeTeX, PDFTeX, eTeX, and TeX (Knuth's original TeX) are conceptually
> at the same level.  The ConTeXt documents (and kpathsea) call this
> level the engine.  They all understand basically the same macro
> language, the one Knuth described in the _TeXBook_.
>
> But they have slight differences.  For example, TeX produces DVI
> output.  eTeX does too but it adds a few more commands ('primitives')
> to the macro language.  PDFTeX produces PDF directly (or can produce
> DVI) and has, relative to regular TeX, new macro commands to support
> features of PDF; for example, \pdfpagewidth is new to PDFTeX.  Regular
> TeX doesn't have an equivalent because the DVI format does not include
> a notion of page size.  PDFTeX, from v1.40, also incorporates those
> eTeX commands.  And XeTeX has commands to support OpenType, which is
> the new standard font format.
>
> LaTeX and ConTeXt are large programs ('macro packages') written on top
> of the engine.  Namely, the program -- whether LaTeX or ConTeXt -- is
> written in the macro language of the engine.  Most of the program is
> independent of the engine, but there are a few changes needed; the
> program usually detects which engine is being used underneath it and
> adjusts what it does accordingly.
>
> For LaTeX, you choose the engine by the name of the program you run:
>
> * latex    -- uses regular TeX (actually, now it uses PDFTeX  
> pretending
>   to be regular TeX)
> * pdflatex -- uses PDFTeX
> * xelatex  -- uses XeTeX
>
> For ConTeXt, you choose the engine by the '--engine' option to
> texexec.  For example: "texexec --engine=pdftex file.tex" will make
> you file.pdf.  But as the manual entry now says, you usually do not
> need to specify the engine:
>
>        --engine=texengine
>               Specify the program to do the hard work of typesetting.
>               Currently either pdftex (the default), xetex, or aleph.
>               The luatex value is experimental.  The --engine option
>               is not usually needed.  Instead, let texexec figure out
>               the setting based on other command-line information.
>               See for example the --xetex or --pdf switches.
>
> So
> * "texexec --xetex file.tex" : uses XeTeX
> * "texexec --pdf file.tex"   : uses PDFTeX
> * "texexec file.tex"         : also uses PDFTeX (the --pdf option is
>                                now the default to texexec)
>
> I hope this explanation clarifies.  If so, you can Wikify (on
> wikipedia and/or the ConTeXt wiki)!
>
> -Sanjoy
>
> `Not all those who wander are lost.' (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------



  I did this interview where I just mentioned that I read Foucault.  
Who doesn't in university, right? I was in this strip club giving  
this guy a lap dance and all he wanted to do was to discuss Foucault  
with me. Well, I can stand naked and do my little dance, or I can  
discuss Foucault, but not at the same time; too much information.
(Annabel Chong)