[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       lyx-devel
Subject:    Re: Hebrew on LyX
From:       Guenter Milde <milde () users ! sf ! net>
Date:       2019-04-30 10:42:55
Message-ID: qa98rf$1qb2$1 () blaine ! gmane ! org
[Download RAW message or body]

On 2019-04-29, mn wrote:
> On 29.04.19 14:24, Guenter Milde wrote:
>> On 2019-04-28, Guy Rutenberg wrote:

>>> I think for 99% of the users writing in Hebrew, XeTeX is the (only)
>>> reasonable choice for writing in Hebrew. There are many broken things
>>> pdfTeX when it comes to Hebrew (and RTL languages), and fonts are only one
>>> of them (another example is hyperref).

>> I agree with this for documents with Hebrew as main language where Xe- or
>> LuaTeX make things a lot easier.

>> The situation is somewhat different for the use case of documents in
>> other languages containing just some quote or word in Hebrew. Here, many
>> users may want to stick to 8-bit LaTeX with TeX fonts because of
>> stability, compilation speed, special requirements or setup. So LyX
>> should support this as good as possible.

> To me it appears as if the situation is *even worse* in the usage
> scenario "just some Hebrew", or better "mixed scripts".

> Think linguists, hebraists, theologians etc. These will often not use a
> single Hebrew word in an otherwise Latin script sentence, but fragment
> of sentences, paragraphs etc.

Yes, for scholars making more than occasional use of Hebrew, the
situation is similar to the native speakers: Both will have to
switch between scripts and writing directions quite often.

Also, the nikud and cantillation signs are hard/impossible to get right
with 8-bit TeX fonts.

> If you care one bit about typography, you usually want to control it.
> And both solutions mentioned mix imo quite awfully with what I want or
> have to use.

The proposed solutions for 8-bit TeX are about getting a default setup
working out of the box. It does not prevent/hinder font customization.


> For all the reasons you listed I hated switching to XeTeX, but it
> appeared as the only sensible option. I ran into problems with pdfLaTeX
> that were very difficult to circumvent or solve, sometimes impossible to
> surmount. Problems that were either easy to solve with XeTeX or never
> there in the first place.

> I asked around in on this list, in other forums, inquired theologians
> and Israelis about this. Not a single soul recommended to stick with
> pdfLaTeX, all said XeTeX is the way to go by now.

This explains somewhat the stalled development of the Hebrew support for
8-bit LaTeX.

> If upstream doesn't have a nice solution for this, then I really
> applaud every effort LyX attempts to make this better. It is really
> awful right now.

There are some simple steps that could overcome the main
incompatibilities with other languages in 8-bit LaTeX which I would like
to see fixed upstream (getting an updated culmus-latex into CTAN/TeXLive,
fixing hebrew.ldf and he8enc.def, support for "vanilla" utf8 with inputenc).


> But the shortage of dev-power suggests that to me that perfecting XeTeX
> support would be a priority.

We are working on this (see the other postings regarding Hebrew).

Thank you for the feedback,

Günter


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]