Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Maurí­cio <briqueabraque@yahoo.com>]

 >>  > Hello,
 >>  >
 >>  > just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers
 >>  > depend on ligatures such as:

 >>  >    '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
 >>  >   `` -> left double quote
 >>  >   ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
 >>  > (...)
 >>
 >> You got replies from experienced users, so
 >> I thought you could use an answer from a
 >> begginer; there are many of us out there!
 >> (...)

 > actually, what is called ligatures here,
 > are no ligatures in the real sense; they
 > are tricks that use the tex ligature
 > mechanism to achieve something (the fi
 > ligature came out of f + i written in
 > sequence but nobody in the past ever wrore,
 > by pen, three -'s separated by a small
 > space in a row, it's was just a longer
 > rule) (...)

I see. I also read somewhere that some font
mechanisms (OpenType?) also handle what is
called ligatures by themselves, is that true?

What about math mode? I've not used it that
much, does it also have such kind of
'pseudo-ligatures'? I read that what I use in
my keyboard to type minus (-) is actually
just ascii minus/hyphen, but in Unicode
there's an actual minus symbol (U+2212). Does
that needs special handling? The ligature
trick could not be used here, I imagine.

Thanks,
Maurício

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