[XeTeX] XeTeX vertical text layout support (for Linux & win32 users)

[Jonathan Kew]

On 19 Jun 2006, at 9:22 am, Jjgod Jiang wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> 2006/6/18, Jonathan Kew <jonathan_kew at sil.org>:
>>
>> With these changes to xetex and xdvipdfmx, I think it should be
>> possible to do vertical-mode CJK on Linux etc using TrueType and
>> OpenType fonts. As always, feedback is invited; I'd be interested to
>> know how this works for people.
>>
>
> I've built rev 282 + patches and did some initial testing with 3  
> fonts:
>
> 方正书宋_GBK (FZShuSong_GBK),
> Kozuka Mincho Pro-VI (freely provided by Adobe Reader)
> HanWangMingMedium
>
> Most characters works fine but punctations seems messed up.
> (and papersize doesn't work now! ) I'll spend some time tracing the
> code to where things went wrong. Please see my attachment for details.

Yuck! Yes, I see the same result with HanWangMingMedium. Note,  
however, that this font doesn't support the OpenType 'vert' feature,  
nor any vertical metrics, so it's not surprising that xetex doesn't  
manage to do a good job with it. I suppose I should do something  
about this....

I don't have the other two fonts you mention (yet), but I tried some  
other FZ... fonts that I have on Linux, and the results look OK.  
Note, though, that you need to include "script=hani" in the font  
declaration in order to specify the Han layout engine; without this,  
the 'vert' feature won't be applied, as it only exists within the Han  
script in the OT fonts.

>
> (http://www.travelphrases.info/gallery/ 
> Fonts_ChineseTraditional.html provides
> some information on where to find Chinese fonts for testing, if you  
> haven't
> noticed.)

Thanks - note that not all fonts listed there necessarily support  
vertical features, though - ymmv ;)

JK