Date:         Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:40:54 +0200
Reply-To:     Hebrew TeX list <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Hebrew TeX list <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Ron Artstein <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Fonts needed for mathematical text in a Hebrew paper.
In-Reply-To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

> This was my concern as well. And you have not answered it. How
> should \textbf{\emph boldface-emphathized text}} look?

It should be a bold version of whatever \emph gives. Anything else
would be confusing and counterintuitive.

In general, I believe NFSS attributes should have the same meanings
in Hebrew as in other scripts, that is n = upright, it = italics,
sl = slanted/oblique, sc = small caps; m = medium, b = bold,
bx = bold extended.

Not all of these attributes are used in Hebrew, but if we use these
attributes with different meanings it would just cause confusion.
If we want to use a different font family for emphasis, this should
be defined at a higher level.

When a font doesn't exist for a combination of attributes, LaTeX
can provide a substitution.


> BTW: while we discuss the subject of various emphasis methods,
> is there any equivalent to small-caps? Is it needed?

IMHO, the answer to the above two questions is no.
For technical reasons it's better to have the sc attribute
defined even in Hebrew, but with font substitutions.


> Note: with Babel each letter has a predefined language and thus
> encoding. If I change settings in the configuration of
> 'hebrew', they will still not affect the English parts.
>
> Thus if you have some English paragraphs, emphasis will still
> use normal italic.

Tzafrir, I'm not quite sure I follow.

The association between NFSS attributes and actual fonts depends on
the font encoding; this is because font encoding is one of the NFSS
attributes :-)

However, the macro \em does not work with the attributes directly,
but is rather defined through the high-level commands \itshape and
\upshape.

\DeclareRobustCommand\em
        {\@nomath\em \ifdim \fontdimen\@ne\font >\z@
                       \upshape \else \itshape \fi}

Explanation: \em checks the slant of the font (\fontdimen1);
in an oblique environment (positive slant) \em expands to \upshape,
and in an upright environment (non-positive slant) \em expands to
\itshape.

It is possible to redefine \emph so that the redefinition will only
take place in a particular language environment (e.g. Hebrew), and
revert to the default when you exit this environment.

It is also possible to redefine it globally.


> The base classes don't seem to use \it , \textit and \itshape

Actually, \itshape is explicitly used for at least two purposes
(code below taken from latex.ltx): for typesetting theorems

\def\@begintheorem#1#2{\trivlist
   \item[\hskip \labelsep{\bfseries #1\ #2}]\itshape}
\def\@opargbegintheorem#1#2#3{\trivlist
      \item[\hskip \labelsep{\bfseries #1\ #2\ (#3)}]\itshape}

and for the footnote designator inside minipages

\def\thempfootnote{\itshape\@alph\c@mpfootnote}


-Ron.