[XeTeX] Unicode editor on Mac (for indian languages like devanagari, kannada etc)

[Yves Codet]

Hello.

Le 31 juil. 09 à 10:10, alessandro graheli a écrit :

> Furthermore I do not see how it is possible to convert a Devanagari  
> MT text into another OpenType Devanagari font, say Sanskrit 2000:  
> most or all ligatures will be screwed. This, I conjecture, is not  
> only related to AAT features and the ATSUI engine, but mainly to the  
> fact that the Unicode standard is limited to root Indic characters,  
> leaving to the font designer freedom for the encoding of hundreds of  
> possible Indic scripts ligatures.

I am afraid I do not understand well. You have nothing to convert. If  
you have typed the right characters in your text editor with, say,  
Devanagari MT, you will get the same result if you ask XeTeX to  
compile the source file using Sanskrit 2003. Ligatures will still be  
there. The only differences will be that the font designers will not  
have always chosen the same default variants for some glyphs and  
ligatures. You can know what variants are available in a font if you  
run AAT-info.tex or OpenType-info.tex (see the attached samples).

But if you mean that Devanagari MT is a little bugged and pretty  
incomplete, you are right.  For instance, there is no ligature for  
"dbr". But if you have typed d+virama+b+virama+r, though it will not  
display correctly in your source file, it will display correctly in  
XeTeX's output if you typeset with a font like Sanskrit 2003, which  
has that ligature.

> Am I perhaps misunderstanding or missing something? Are there  
> declarations in XeTeX and/or suitable OpenType Devanagari fonts  
> which allow the correct output of a text input with Devanagari MT in  
> OSX?

The font you use when you type does not matter, except that to see a  
legible text in an AAT-only text editor like TeXShop you have to use  
an AAT font.

Best wishes,

Yves

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