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Encodings and Regimes - Old Content (view source)
Revision as of 20:36, 27 December 2004
, 20:36, 27 December 2004Renamed the Composite Characters page and added an introduction
The [http://unicode.org/ Unicode] effort clearly shows that 256 characters cannot possibly contain the world's languages. However (with the exception of modern variants like [[Omega]] and [[XeTeX]]), TeX is an old system, and will only deal with 256 characters per font. Similarly, many "legacy" file encodings on current operating systems will attempt to shoehorn a set of characters into eight bytes. As a result, you need to make a choice which input encoding ('''regime''') or font/output encoding ('''encoding''') you use. ==Typesetting in UTF-8==
Use <texcode>\enableregime[utf]</texcode> in order to be able to typeset in unicode under ConTeXt.
==How it works?==
'''Robert Ermers''' and '''[[User:adam|Adam Lindsay]]''' provided a helpful explanation of how Characters are constructed in LaTeX and ConTeXt (in some discussion on the mailing list):
You know that all characters in a font have a number. If you type <code>a</code>, the font mechanism makes sure that you see an <context>a</context>. In reality the font shows you the character that is put on the numerical position of <code>a</code>. In the font dingbats for example, the character on that position is not an <context>a</context>, but a symbol.
