[OS X TeX] Inserting a few words in "non-latin-character" languages

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 03.10.2010 um 19:17 schrieb Alain Schremmer:

> As single, isolated example in the magnum opus, I would like to give  
> translations of the word table in a few "exotic" languages.


I think you better do not use babel and language switching, or  
polyglossia – just use XeLaTeX! (I think you do not have LuaLaTeX  
yet...)

With pdfTeX you will have one problem: you cannot encode a zillion of  
different characters with just one 7- or 8-bit input encoding and one  
7- or 8-bit font encoding. So you have to change to Unicode encoding  
(for example UTF-8), and enable a dozen (or such) font encodings.

And I also think that you'll have a great problem when you mix the  
euro-centric L(atin)G(reek)C(yrillic) based scripts with CJK. (A  
bigger problem might come up when you mix L(eft)T(o)R(ight) with RTL  
writing directions.)

For a pdfLaTeX source in UTF-8 (input) encoding two systems are  
available: the old ucs package (out of support) and the usual inputenc  
package or Heiko Oberdiek's inputenx package.

A possible pdfLaTeX preamble could have one of these two:

	\usepackage[utf8]{inputenx}
	\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

plus

	\usepackage[T1,T2A,T2B,T2C,X2,LCY,LY1,T3,T4,T5,T6,T7]{fontenc}	%  
there might be more, the inputen{c|x} packages will care for
	%\usepackage[full]{textcomp}


In the text body many times you'll certainly have to something like

	\fontsize{12}{13.5pt}\usefont{<encoding>}{<TeX font name>}{<weight>} 
{<shape>}\selectfont

or

	\fontencoding{<encoding>}\fontfamily{<TeX font family name>} 
\fontseries{m}\fontshape{n}
	\fontsize{12}{13.5pt}\selectfont

(the sizes are just some numbers or examples) and switch back to the  
standard, which is easy (either grouping or a macro which re-selects  
the standard font).


With XeLaTeX much less hassle. For NFSS2 usage and re-selection best  
look into The LaTeX Companion (\usefont)!

--
Greetings

   Pete

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug! Our software does not coddle the  
weak."