From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/34135 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sanjoy Mahajan Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: ConTeXt, XeTeX, ect was Re: OpenType in Windows Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:23:34 +0100 Message-ID: References: <6BF610EA-E849-4E3D-945F-F39B8A20EC79@di.unito.it> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1175779434 20047 80.91.229.12 (5 Apr 2007 13:23:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 13:23:54 +0000 (UTC) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Thu Apr 05 15:23:48 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HZRwK-0006Fw-5f for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:23:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B9FF200B4; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:46 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 08212-01-8; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:40 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2EDDD2008F; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:40 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0A662008F for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:37 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 08212-01-7 for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:36 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk (mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk [131.111.48.8]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E61520061 for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:23:36 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from skye.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk ([131.111.48.158] ident=mail) by mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HZRw6-0006gC-N5; Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:23:34 +0100 Original-Received: from sanjoy by skye.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk with local (Exim 3.36 #1) id 1HZRw6-0005nD-00; Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:23:34 +0100 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:14:59 +0200." <6BF610EA-E849-4E3D-945F-F39B8A20EC79@di.unito.it> X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 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: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:34135 Archived-At: > 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)