[XeTeX] Roman Numerals as stylistic alternatives

[enrico.gregorio at univr.it]

> Hi,
> 
> if I understand correctly, that way the output still shows the letters 
> or the deprecated unicode codepoints. It should be analog to medieval / 
> lowercase numbers. E.g. it's still the number 123 it only uses different 
> glyphs. So when I copypaste it, it shows the number 123 and not cxxiii.
> This could be a very complex procedure, if applied to arbitrary numbers, 
> but most times it can be reduced to low numbers.
> 
> Another idea:
> 
> the macro \roman{counter} does the complicated part of the job. Could 
> one use the result of that macro (letters) and transform them to the 
> desired output?

When you highlight characters in a PDF and copy them you get the codes and
all that it's attached to them. The problem with Roman numerals is that a
"digit" has different meanings depending on the context. The "C" in "CXV"
means 1, but in "CMXV" it means nothing by itself.

This is like asking that copying the word "word" in an English document
and pasting it into an Italian document it gives "parola". The two words
mean the same thing, but in different languages.

It's possible to convert Thai numerals into Western Arabic ones, because
they are simply different representations of the same thing: the language
is the same, only in a different script. For Roman numerals it's nothing
like that.

Ciao
Enrico

--
Enrico Gregorio          + Dipartimento di Informatica          + Tel: +39 045 8027937
Enrico.Gregorio at univr.it + Università degli Studi di Verona     +
(gregorio at math.unipd.it) + Strada le Grazie 15 / I-37134 Verona + Fax: +39 045 8027928