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| XeTeX | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Original author | Jonathan Kew |
| Stable release | 0.999997 / March 7, 2025; 11 months ago (2025-03-07) |
| Written in | Pascal (WEB),C andC++ |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Typesetting |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | xetex |
| Repository | |
XeTeX (/ˈziːtɛx/ZEE-tekh[1]or/ˈziːtɛk/; see alsoPronouncing and writing "TeX"), sometimes stylized asXeTeX, is aTeXtypesetting engine usingUnicode and supporting modern font technologies such asOpenType,Graphite andApple Advanced Typography (AAT). It was originally written by Jonathan Kew and is distributed under theX11 free software license.[2]
Initially developed forMac OS X only, it is now available for all major platforms. It natively supports Unicode and the input file is assumed to be inUTF-8 encoding by default. XeTeX can use any fonts installed in the operating system without configuringTeX font metrics, and can make direct use of advanced typographic features ofOpenType,AAT andGraphite technologies such as alternativeglyphs andswashes, optional or historicligatures, and variable font weights. Support for OpenType local typographic conventions (locl tag) is also present. XeTeX even allows raw OpenType feature tags to be passed to the font.Microtypography is also supported. XeTeX also supports typesetting mathematics using Unicode fonts that contain special mathematical features, such asCambria Math orAsana Math as an alternative to the traditional mathematical typesetting based on TeX font metrics.
LaTeX developers have announced that they no longer support new LaTeX functionalities on the XeTeX engine, and encourage users to migrate toLuaTeX, another Unicode-supporting engine.[3]
XeTeX processes input in two stages. In the first stage XeTeX outputs anextended DVI (xdv) file, which is then converted toPDF by a driver. In the default operating mode thexdv output is piped directly to the driver without producing any user-visible intermediate files. It is possible to run just the first stage of XeTeX and save thexdv, although as of July 2008[update] there are no viewers capable of displaying the intermediate format.
Two backend drivers are available to generate PDF from anxdv file:
Starting from version 0.997, the default driver is xdvipdfmx on all platforms. As of version 0.9999, xdv2pdf is no longer supported and its development has been discontinued.[4]
XeTeX works well with bothLaTeX andConTeXt macro packages. It is usually invoked throughxelatex when using LaTeX. It is usually used with thefontspec package, which provides a configurable interface for font selection, and allows complex font choices to be named and later reused.[5]
XeTeX is bundled withTeX Live,MacTeX,MiKTeX andLyX (see theHistory below for dates and versions).[6]
The following is an example of XeLaTeX source and rendered output. The typeface used isOFL-licensed fontLinux Libertine. The text is to be processed by the commandxelatex.
\documentclass[11pt]{article}\usepackage{fontspec}\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Linux Libertine O}\begin{document}\section{Unicode support}\subsection{English}All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.\subsection{Íslenska}Hver maður er borinn frjáls og jafn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum.\subsection{Русский} Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах.\subsection{Tiếng Việt}Tất cả mọi người sinh ra đều được tự do và bình đẳng về nhân phẩm và quyền lợi.\subsection{Ελληνικά} Ὅλοι οἱ ἄνθρωποι γεννιοῦνται ἐλεύθεροι καὶ ἴσοι στὴν ἀξιοπρέπεια καὶ τὰ δικαιώματα.\section{Legacy syntax}When he goes---``Hello World!''\\She replies---“Hello dear!”\section{Ligatures}\fontspec[Ligatures={Common, Historic}]{Linux Libertine O Italic}Questo è strano assai!\section{Numerals}\fontspec[Numbers={OldStyle}]{Linux Libertine O}Old style: 1234567\\\fontspec[Numbers={Lining}]{Linux Libertine O}Lining: 1234567\end{document} | 
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XeTeX also supportsright-to-left scripts, such asArabic. One way of rendering Arabic in XeTeX is to use the package arabxetex. In order to do so, the Arabic is placed inside the following:
\begin{arab}[utf]...\end{arab}
The following code illustrates this:
\documentclass[12pt,fleqn,titlepage,twoside,a4paper]{book}\usepackage{etex}\usepackage{amsfonts,amsmath,amssymb,graphicx}\usepackage{txfonts}\usepackage[centering,includeheadfoot,margin=1in]{geometry}\usepackage{tabvar}\usepackage{arabxetex}%\newfontfamily{\arabicfont}[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.5]{Traditional Arabic}\parindent = 0pt\begin{document}\begin{arab}[utf]\chapter*{\textarab[utf]{ حِكَم من تَجمـيعي}}\section*{\textarab[utf]{ شِعر}} أديـن بدين الحـــب أنـى تــوجـهت ركـائبه\qquad فالحـــب دينــي و إيماني\\ لنا أسوة في بشر هند و اختها و قيس و ليلى\qquad ثـــــم مـــــي و غـــيــــلان\end{arab}\end{document} | 
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In bibliographic files (see below the BibTeX example) you can use Unicode entities and call them with their native scripting, for example \cite{Ekstrøm}, instead of a transliterated ASCII form like \cite{Ekstrom} which is mandatory using thepdfTeX engine.
% Encoding: UTF8@ARTICLE(Ekstrom,AUTHOR="Author w",TITLE="{Ekstrøm title}",JOURNAL="Ekstr{\o}m Journal",YEAR=1965,note={Working with pdflatex})@ARTICLE(Ekstrøm,AUTHOR="Author Ekstr{\o}m",TITLE="{Ekstrøm title}",JOURNAL="Ekstrøm Journal",YEAR="1965",note={Not working with pdflatex but with xelatex})
XeTeX was initially released forMac OS X only in April 2004[7] with built-inAAT andUnicode support. In 2005 support for OpenType layout features was first introduced. During BachoTeX 2006 a version forLinux was announced, which was ported toMicrosoft Windows by Akira Kakuto a few months later, and finally included intoTeX Live 2007 for all major platforms. XeTeX is also supported byLyX since version 2.0[8] and shipped withMiKTeX since version 2.7.As of the inclusion inTeX Live, XeTeX supports most macro packages written forLaTeX,OpenType,TrueType andPostScript fonts without any specific setup procedure.Version 0.998 announced atBachoTeX 2008 supportsUnicode normalization via the\XeTeXinputnormalization command.Version 0.9999, released in May 2013, switched fromICU Layout Engine toHarfBuzz forOpenType layout, and Graphite2 engine forGraphite layout, as wellCore Text framework instead ofATSUI on Mac OS X.
XeTeX's originalSourceForge code repository has not seen changes since January 20, 2020.[9] It's still included in the TeX Live repository and occasionally receives fixes, but there have been no major developments. LaTeX developers have stated that it won't be supported in their ongoing effort to producetagged PDF,[3] and one developer consider it unmaintained.[10]
