Publications by topic: Unicode

TUG Conference 2022 (Online conference)

Case changing: LaTeX reaches Unicode-land

• Joseph Wright
• Video of the TUG 2022 online conference
• Keywords: LaTeX, Unicode, case changing
• Abstract

  In 2015, I talked about my work exploring Unicode-land, particularly how to carry out case changing in XeTeX and LuaTeX properly. Since then, expl3 has become a part of the LaTeX kernel, and LaTeX has adopted UTF-8 as the standard input encoding. The time has therefore become ripe to “open up” Unicode-land to allow MakeUppercase and MakeLowercase to roam free. In this talk, I’ll remind us of what Unicode tells us about case changing, where the challenges are and how we’ve approached them in expl3. I’ll then show how this has combined with some *TeX features to enable us to make the switch, incorporate ideas from the textcase package and upgrade MakeUppercase and MakeLowercase for the 21st century.

Case changing: From TeX primitives to the Unicode algorithm

• Joseph Wright
• TUGboat 41:1, 2020
• Abstract

  The concept of letter case is well established for several alphabet-based scripts, most notably Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Upper- and lowercase are so widely used that it may not be obvious that there are several subtleties in converting case. However, those subtleties are important in supporting a wide range of users, and getting all of them right is non-trivial.

  Whilst the English alphabet has simple casechanging rules, when we look beyond English and (possibly) beyond the Latin alphabet, tracking the requirements becomes more complicated. Many of these have been codified by the Unicode Consortium, and following these guidelines means that different pieces of software can give consistent outcomes.

  Here, I want to look at how case changing can be set up in TeX, primarily focussing on tools that the LaTeX Project have provided, but in the wider context of the TeX ecosystem.

From the TUG Conference 2018 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Unicode fonts with fontspec and unicode-math (slides)

• Will Robertson
• TUG Conference 2018 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• Abstract:

While the fundamentals of both the fontspec and unicode-math packages have stayed the same, these packages have undergone a significant amount of development behind the scenes. While many users won’t be interested in the technical details, there are a number of feature additions that deserve broader discussion.

In this presentation I will cover the basics of these packages and best practices for using them, specifically including more recent features that users may not yet have seen. I will also try to give an overview of some technical details to focus on expl3 package development and lessons learned.

Video of the talk recorded by IMPA on YouTube: Unicode fonts with fontspec and unicode-math

From the TUG Conference 2015 (Darmstadt, Germany)

Reconciling unicode-math with LaTeX2e mathematics (slides)

• Will Robertson
• TUG Conference 2015 (Darmstadt, Germany)
• Video of the talk: Reconciling unicode-math with LaTeX2e mathematics (via River Valley TV)

Joseph’s Adventures in Unicodeland

• Joseph Wright

• Published paper, TUGboat volume 36, number 2, 2015

• TUG Conference 2015 (Darmstadt, Germany)
• Video of the talk: XeTeX and LuaTeX: Getting Unicode data into the right places (via River Valley TV)
• Slides of the talk: XeTeX and LuaTeX: Getting Unicode data into the right places

From the UK-TUG meeting in 2014

Some video footage from the meeting in November 2014 on LaTeX2e and LaTeX3 development topics.

Case changing in the Unicode world (video)

• Joseph Wright
• UK-TUG meeting in 2014

A companion to Joseph’s talk on l3build is the published paper on this topic by Will and Frank.

From the TUG Conference 2010 (San Francisco, USA)

Unicode mathematics in LaTeX: advantages and challenges

• Will Robertson

• Published paper, TUGboat, Volume 31 (2010), No. 2

• TUG Conference 2010 (San Francisco, USA)
• Video of the talk: Unicode mathematics in LaTeX: advantages and challenges (via River Valley TV)
• Slides of the talk: Unicode mathematics in LaTeX: advantages and challenges

In this paper and talk Will discusses Unicode mathematics in the context of LaTeX with the unicode-math package.

From the Unicode Conference 1996 (Mainz, Germany)

Application-independent representation of text for document processing – will Unicode suffice?

• Frank Mittelbach and Chris Rowley
• Unicode Conference 1996 (Mainz, Germany)
• Published paper, 1996
• Keywords: general research, language, text representation

A paper about application-independent representation of text for document processing; it discusses some of the Unicode shortcomings.