[XeTeX] XeTeX documentation "initiative"

[Michiel Kamermans]

On 9/7/2010 9:23 PM, Wilfred van Rooijen wrote:
> It seems that there have been no replies to the list about Michiel's proposal to make a combined xe(la)tex reference manual and user manual. Personally I would be willing to contribute, but I am not an expert on xetex, rather a casual user with perhaps "advanced" experience of using latex for several types of (scientific) publications. Michiel, what exactly so you have in mind? A Xe(La)TeX Companion, i.e. similar to the latex companion but based on xelatex, and then expanded to include more references to xetex specific commands and programming?
>
> I can see something like this: a user manual focusing on xelatex, typesetting of scientific works, bibtex and the associated front ends, hyperref etc, beamer to make presentations, TikZ (2D and 3D) to make figures, in short, something like a latex companion but modernized and expanded to include a reference manual.
>    

That was my idea. I was considering starting with the "XeTeX companion" 
[1] that Michel Goossens collaboratively started in 1996, and extending 
it/updating it to cover the basic topic of TeX, the specific topic of 
the XeTeX flavour, and all commonly used packages that end up being 
discussed on this list again and again (fontspec, polyglossia, hyperref, 
xeCJK, bidi, etc), as well as a section on writing your own commands and 
package, also highlighting common basic TeX commands you should at least 
have seen if you want to have any hope of writing a decent XeTeX command 
yourself, like the "Plain TeX Quick Reference" [2], but then adapted to 
also contain the XeTeX specific commands that let one write a generally 
useful macro. A section on pdf-related commands would also be essential, 
I think, especially for those who need to generate production PDF 
(several people in the past year asked questions falling under that topic).

Of course, hijacking Michel's work wouldn't be very nice, but if he 
doesn't mind a fresh batch of document contributions then we're already 
well on our way to having an up to date document that we can point to 
and say "this should be able to get you from never having used (La)TeX 
to general purpose Xe(La)TeX use".

(And ideally keeping it free, even if it ends up available in book form. 
I personally found that the one truly annoying thing about the LaTeX 
companion - I don't mind paying for a reference work after it turns out 
it is the reference work I need, but what's the point of a free 
typesetting engine when the documentation costs a non-trivial amount of 
money? It always seemed to me the one real reason LaTeX is considered so 
inaccessible to the general public)

- Mike

[1] http://xml.web.cern.ch/XML/lgc2/xetexmain.pdf
[1] http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/texcrib.pdf