Brno
June
LATEX 2ε Encoding Interfaces
Purpose, Concepts, and Open Problems
Frank Mittelbach
Zedernweg 62
55128 Mainz
Germany
Contents
1 Overview
2
2 What’s that?
3
3 And what’s that?
4
4 One Encoding Problem
5
5 Input Encodings
6
6 Input Encodings: Possible Realisations
7
7 Input Encodings: The LATEX 2ε solution
8
8 Another Encoding Problem
9
9 Output Encodings
10
10 Output Encodings: Possible Realisations
11
11 Output Encodings: The LATEX 2ε solution
12
12 Internal Encoding
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13 Internal Encoding: Possible Realisations
14
14 Internal Encoding: The LATEX 2ε solution
15
15 Encoding Specific Commands: Concepts
16
1
16 The \lowercase and the \lccode Table
17
17 Example: Using \lowercase on input
18
18 Example: Hyphenation and the \lccode Table
19
19 Example: Hyphenation and the \lccode Table
20
20 Example: Hyphenation in a Paragraph
21
21 Consequences
22
22 The LATEX 2ε Encoding Solution
23
23 Future tasks
24
2
1 Overview
• Input encodings (keyboard encodings) introduced with
LATEX 2ε 1994/12/01
• Output encodings (font encodings) introduced with NFSS
• Standard internal representations (internal encoding)
• Future tasks
This talk will describe the models used by LATEX 2ε to translate input characters in a source
document via internal representations to glyphs in a font. This is important for everybody
writing in a language other than English and/or using a TeX system that allows 8-bit input.
The talk will cover
• input encodings (keyboard encodings) introduced with LATEX 2ε 1994/12/01
• output encodings (font encodings) introduced with NFSS
• standard internal representations
Future issues discussed will be a proposal for 8-bit math encoding developed by the LATEX3
Project and a general mechanism for providing “short references” to ease coding tasks such as
"a → \"{a} as they are already available in certain language files.
Short refs are clearly part of input encodings: indeed, inputenc could be looked on as making
all 128 upper input chars into short refs.
∗ ∗ ∗
To set the stage . . .
3
2 What’s that?
GrŤ