xelatex support

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Long term, it would be nice to have xelatex support.  In theory, it should 
mostly be a drop-in replacement for pdflatex that adds Unicode handling.  
Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite mature enough yet to justify 
spending much time on, but for future reference:

1) There is a "xetex" option for hyperref that needs to be specified or 
xelatex will crash and burn.

2) If I set "PDFLATEX ?= xelatex" and "hyperref_driver_pattern ?= 
hdvipdf.*" then the Makefile can build the pdf from the tex file without 
any other changes.

However, xelatex doesn't seem to be able to include pdf graphics.  
Apparently xelatex builds an intermediate "extended dvi" file and then 
outputs a pdf.  The biggest pain with supporting xelatex would be figuring 
out which types of input graphics it can deal with.

Don't waste any time on it until people really start demanding it, but if 
and when the time comes, the above information might be helpful.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by amcna...@gmail.com on 10 Mar 2010 at 9:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Now that I've figured out the magic sauce for pdflatex, it shouldn't be too 
hard to 
support dvipdfm, also.

You can just specify dvipdfm in the graphicx package and you get pdf input 
graphics, 
from what I've read.  I'm not starting on this until someone speaks up again, 
though.  I 
need to do some real work.

Original comment by shiblon on 11 Mar 2010 at 2:47

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'd really like to see this work with xelatex natively. The changes in the 
second
point make it work for me, modulo a problem I'll save as a separate issue.

Original comment by lat...@gmail.com on 6 May 2010 at 9:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I vote for xelatex support too. For people writing LaTeX documents that use 
lots of non-ASCII characters, XeTeX and its Unicode + OTF support make life 
much easier. There's also OTF support in general, which makes font 
customization for superior typography a breeze.

Original comment by Strahinja.Markovic@gmail.com on 19 Jun 2010 at 2:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'll do my best to accommodate xelatex.  If anyone has insights into the 
differences between pdflatex and xelatex (in addition to what has already been 
given), then that would help.

Original comment by shiblon on 21 Jun 2010 at 5:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks shiblon. Two important differences between XeLaTeX and pdfLaTeX are:

1. The command argument for producing non-PDF output with XeLaTeX is "-no-pdf"; 
and

2. XeLaTeX produces xdvi (or "dvi extended") which has extension "xdv", instead 
of regular dvi files.

The xdvi format is essentially pointless right now (except as a build progress 
indicator) as nothing can read or convert it.

Original comment by brianmh...@gmail.com on 11 Jul 2010 at 6:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks - I'll look into this at some point.  Brian, how urgent is this?  Should 
I be allocating time for it immediately, or is it something that can be put on 
the back burner for now?

Original comment by shiblon on 20 Jul 2010 at 5:36

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The open Perl 6 book is now using latex-makefile with xelatex support. It's 
probably incomplete, but works. No proper patch yet, but you could look into 
our source and make a diff -- there are only a few changes there: 
http://github.com/perl6/book/tree/master/lib/

Original comment by nikol...@prokoschenko.de on 25 Jul 2010 at 1:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Wow, excellent!  I have incorporated your changes into r45951ff345cb - now you 
just need to specify BUILD_STRATEGY:=xelatex in your .ini file and that's it.

How shall I attribute the patch to you in the CHANGES section?

Original comment by shiblon on 28 Jul 2010 at 1:59

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Note that my patch is probably incomplete, since I didn't test any of the edge 
cases -- and only direct PDF generation. Usual case of "your mileage may vary" 
;)

You could credit me as "Nikolai Prokoschenko" if you like, even though I 
consider this contribution miniscule. But still -- thank you :)

Original comment by nikol...@prokoschenko.de on 28 Jul 2010 at 2:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

readbb0db04e8 has the attribution :)

Original comment by shiblon on 28 Jul 2010 at 2:33

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please note: you are missing a XELATEX definition in current trunk. This way 
$(XELATEX) won't work.

Original comment by nikol...@prokoschenko.de on 28 Jul 2010 at 3:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I feel sheepish.  rc6de60aa1dfb and soon-to-be-uploaded rc5 fix this.

Original comment by shiblon on 28 Jul 2010 at 3:15