[XeTeX] Re: [MacTeX] XeTeX 0.4 available

[Bruno Voisin]

> I've posted a new version of XeTeX, the Unicode-based TeX for OS X; see
>
> 	http://scripts.sil.org/xetex/
>
> This fixes a number of reported bugs:
> * incorrect setting of \mathchar values
> * height and width keywords for \picfile and \pdffile were not working
> * fclose() error messages related to font loading
> * excessively large PDF file generation when using TFM-based (rather
> than AAT) fonts
> * bad OTF encoding prevented Acrobat viewing output with TFM-based
> fonts

In addition to these, it seems that the bug in the implementation of
\magnification in xvd2pdf has also been fixed. Thanks again.
I just tried XeTeX on another situation: Lucida fonts. In both plain TeX
and LaTeX, things don't work (as soon as the font calls are changed to CM,
things become OK).
I thought of several possible explanations, being unsure about any:

- On my setup, the fonts are available in FFIL and LWFN formats in /System
Folder/Fonts/, and in PFB format in
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/fonts/type1/yandy/, but not in OTF
format. Is it that XeTeX can only work with OTF fonts ? (I think not.)
- With plain TeX, the fonts are called by their original Y&Y names, for
example (taken from lcdplain.tex):
    \font\tenrm=lbr at 9.5pt \font\sevenrm=lbr at 6.9pt  \font\fiverm=lbr
    at 5.2pt
whereas the LWFN font files have different names such as LucidBri. If I
understood correctly, XeTeX searches first for font files, either in
/System Folder/Fonts/ or /Library/Fonts/ or ~/Library/Fonts/, with the
same names as the metrics, so it might be fooled here by the different
names. Is there some equivalent scheme in XeTeX to Textures' metrics
suitcases, or OzTeX's config files, to map TeX metrics names to Mac screen
and printer font files? Or it is simpler to just modify the font calls to
the Mac OS font names, for example:
    \font\tenrm="Lucida Bright" at 9.5pt
    \font\sevenrm="Lucida Bright" at 6.9pt
    \font\fiverm="Lucida Bright" at 5.2pt

- With LaTeX, the fonts are called by a different scheme: in TeX 'n ANSI
(LY1) encoding, for example, the LaTeX input file looks for the metrics
hlhr8y.tfm matched by the dvips map file to the font lbr.pfb inside
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/fonts/type1/yandy/lubright/. Does XeTeX
use such mapping information, and can it use PFB files inside the teTeX
directories? (I think not.)
It is of course possible to edit the various input files to replace TeX
"devious" font names by the corresponding Mac font names, and I don't
really mind, but I'm just wondering if there is something obvious I'm
doing wrong.
Bruno Voisin