[XeTeX] XeLaTeX and SIunitx

[Bruno Le Floch]

On 5/11/12, Joseph Wright <joseph.wright at morningstar2.co.uk> wrote:
> On 11/05/2012 17:36, Tobias Schoel wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have done a few tests with the problematic symbols in siunitx (namely
>> micro, ohm, angstrom, celsius, degree/arcsecond/arcminute) and different
>> math fonts. You'll find source and result attached. As I don't have
>> access to commercial fonts (which includes MS Fonts), I could only test
>> some of them. The results aren't overwhelming.
>>
>> Is it possible and acceptable to include a package option or
>> sisetup-option which makes the suitable definitions? It shouldn't be
>> default, even when loading fontspec in xetex, but easily accessible.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> bye
>>
>> Tobias
>
> As the siunitx documents state, there are simply too many combinations
> of font packages to hope to cover all of them 'out of the box' or indeed
> in the documentation, especially as XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX users may be
> loading /any/ system font. Furthermore, the package code has to work
> with pdfTeX, so it cannot contain UTF-8 characters outside of the ASCII
> range.
>
> As such, I can only make general recommendations in the documentation on
> what to do to print these symbols correctly when using UTF-8 engines.

I'm really no expert, but the siunitx package could include, e.g., µ
as ^^^^00b5.  This  would not make pdftex choke when appearing in the
false branch of an engine-dependent conditional.

Regards,
Bruno