Re: [XeTeX] Guaranteed Unicode replacement glyph in every TeX installation?

[Doug McKenna]

George - 

Thanks! 

- Doug McK. 


From: "George N. White III"  
To: "xetex"  
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 8:14:58 AM 
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Guaranteed Unicode replacement glyph in every TeX 
installation? 

On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 22:46, Doug McKenna < [ mailto:d...@mathemaesthetics.com 
| d...@mathemaesthetics.com ] > wrote: 



Using XeTeX, I want to typeset a LaTeX document into a PDF file. The LaTeX 
source code in UTF-8 



BQ_BEGIN

expressly includes the Unicode Replacement character (� = U+FFFD) (a black 
diamond with a 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

question mark in it). 

I want to typeset it in this single document using a monospaced font in one 
place, and in another 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

place in a variable-width font. 

I understand that XeTeX can take advantage of one's system's installed fonts, 
but my LaTeX file 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

is being generated by another program that doesn't know what those fonts are or 
what glyphs 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

they support. I simply want to guarantee that the fonts used are always 
available when processing 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

that LaTeX file. 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN


I also understand that it's possible to synthesize the glyph graphically 
without using a font, but I'd 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

rather not go that route. 

So ... What fixed-width and variable-width OpenType (or other) fonts, if any, 
are always distributed 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

with TeX or TeXLive or whatever that one can rely upon to be available for 
placing this particular 

BQ_END

BQ_BEGIN

glyph in a final PDF file? What would be the correct incantation to doing so? 

BQ_END

0xFFFD should be in any mainstream general use OpenType font. It might be 
better to ask which 
OT fonts to avoid due to low quality, bugs, lack of ongoing support, etc. There 
has been a lot of 
churn in the available fonts over the years, so the answer may be different if 
you need fonts that 
can be expected to have long-term support and availability. 

-- 
George N. White III 

Re: [XeTeX] Guaranteed Unicode replacement glyph in every TeX installation?

[Philip Taylor]

Ulrike Fischer wrote:


And sorry: the general case is that people have windows 10 (if they
have windows) and not windows 7.


If by "the general case", you mean "the majority", then statistically 
you are of course correct :



Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide - July 2021
Win10   78.43%
Win716.03%
Win8.1  3.49%
Win81.17%
WinXP   0.59%
WinVista0.26%



but 16% still represents a /very/ large number of people, perhaps even 
in excess of 100x10^6 
.

--
/Philip Taylor/

Re: [XeTeX] Guaranteed Unicode replacement glyph in every TeX installation?

[Philip Taylor]

George N. White III wrote:

I have access to a couple Windows Systems (10 Enterprise and 10 Pro) 
with a full install
of TeX Live 2021 with current updates.  Both have 
"\bin\win32\albatross.exe"
and the default Windows TL2021 fontconfig setup.   Both work as 
advertised (but default Windows terminal
doesn't display UniCode and the output seems to be a fixed width so 
truncates the font file pathnames).

On linux the UniCode characters display properly.


Interesting.  Under Windows 7 64-bit (Enterprise) I find the same file 
in the same location; I wonder why a TeX Live 2021 CMD prompt did not 
recognise the command.

--
/Philip Taylor/

Re: [XeTeX] Guaranteed Unicode replacement glyph in every TeX installation?

[George N. White III]

On Sat, 21 Aug 2021 at 11:20, Philip Taylor (HI) <
p.tay...@hellenic-institute.uk> wrote:

> Ulrike Fischer wrote:
>
>
> With a current texlive you can use albatross to find out which fonts
> on your system support this
>
>albatross -d 0xFFFD
>
>
> I appreciate that this answer may have been targetted solely at Doug
> McKenna, but in the general case it does not work.  Here, using TeX Live
> 2021 under Windows 7 Ultimate, the command "albatross" is unknown —
>
> Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
> Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
>
> d:\Users\Philip Taylor>albatross -d 0xFFFD
> 'albatross' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
> operable program or batch file.
>
> d:\Users\Philip Taylor>
>
>
I have access to a couple Windows Systems (10 Enterprise and 10 Pro) with a
full install
of TeX Live 2021 with current updates.  Both have
"\bin\win32\albatross.exe"
and the default Windows TL2021 fontconfig setup.   Both work as advertised
(but default Windows terminal
doesn't display UniCode and the output seems to be a fixed width so
truncates the font file pathnames).
On linux the UniCode characters display properly.


-- 
George N. White III