[XeTeX] Problems with Hebrew in Lucida and Paanana, Peninim.

[Robert Voogdgeert]

Dear XeTeX users,


When using Lucida for typesetting Hebrew some vowel sign are not placed 
correctly underneath the consonant, e.g. the patach is not posited 
right underneath the zayin. (Texteditor the same problem occurs: type z 
followed by option+1 and you'll see that the vowel sign is to left of 
the consonant instead of underneath it. It looks like the vowel signs 
in combination with z(ayin) are placed in the position where it should 
be in case of other consonants, e.g. b(eth). Strange thing is, that 
this odd behaviour is absent when used with waw, type u followed by 
option+1, or yod, type h followed by option+1. So, the problem seems to 
be related solely to the zayin.) This problem was already noticed by 
others working with other languages of course, but I also noticed that 
when using Paanana, or Peninim instead of Lucida, the words appear in 
`pairs' so to speak: they are typeset in sequences of two words 
followed by an extremely long space. Anyone got a clue?


I must say I'm astonished by the capabilities of XeTeX when it comes to 
r2l languages and complex scripts. Cuneiform scripts like Ugaritic, 
Akkadian (l2r though) also seems to work fine. I've been working for 
quite a while with Hebrew fonts to get them to work in LaTeX without 
success. Bob Kerstetter had the same problems with the Greek fonts from 
the same software (Accordance). With XeTeX though, I can copy and paste 
to the source-file, use Lucida, and most things work well. When using 
Accordance Hebrew font, Yehudit, this work perfectly even the 
cantilation signs are placed as they should.


Regards,
Robert.