Package: texlive-latex-base Version: 2007-10 I'm assuming this is a problem with inputenc; if you think it's a problem with XeTeX, please reassign this bug to texlive-xetex.
Specifying something like \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} should do nothing when input to xelatex (XeTeX already uses UTF-8 input by default); apparently it does, because it breaks accented characters. I'm attaching a sample file, gzipped to avoid charset conversions by your mailer. It works in pdflatex, fails in xelatex. Removing the inputenc line from the input makes it work in xelatex. Juliusz Chroboczek
utf8test.tex.gz
Description: Binary data