RE: [MiKTeX] Suppressing Ligatures

[Mullen, J. P. (Contractor) <mul...@tr...>]

Hi Jon,

Well I tried it.  I didn't get any error messages, but it didn't work
either.

I'm not sure if Acrobat will be interested in breaking ligatures, but I am
going to send an email to Dragon (one popular screen reader) and mention the
problem.  Since each ligature is a unique character, it might be possible
for the screen reader programs to do the filtering.

Thanks for the try, anyhow.

John Mullen

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Flynn [mailto:Jo...@fl...]
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 6:58 AM
To: mik...@li...;
mik...@li...
Subject: RE: [MiKTeX] Suppressing Ligatures


John,

I've not tested it, but something like the following might work:

{\let\xxx=\gdef \catcode`\f=\active \xxx f{f\relax}}

Place it (including the outer set of braces) after all \usepackage, 
\newcommand, \renewcommand, \newtheorem and any other definition
commands  (i.e., just before \begin{document}).

The idea is to make the character `f' behave like a macro and for
TeX to expand it to f\relax.  For example, if TeX reads the word
`Define' it will expand it to `Def\relax ine' thus breaking the
`fi' ligature.  The use of \xxx here is because \gdef contains an
`f'  After making `f' active, TeX would expand this to `\gde'
followed by `f' and would probably complain about an undefined
control sequence.  As I say, I've not tested this construction so
I may have missed something blindingly obviously wrong with it.
You may need to construct something else along these lines, but
using token lists or with clever use of \expandafter.

If none of this works, a sure way to break the ligatures is to
make the editor program you use replace all instances of `f' in
the text of yuor document with'`f{}'  That is, `f' followed by an
empty group.

You may also want to send an e-mail to Adobe requesting their next
version of Acrobat Reader includes a search engine that breaks
ligatures.  This would be the best solution. :-) 

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,

Jon

> 
> From: "Mullen, John P. (Contractor)"
<mul...@tr...>
> Date: Thu 12/Sep/2002 13:14 GMT
> To: mik...@li...
> Subject: RE: [MiKTeX] Suppressing Ligatures
> 
> Hi Melle,
> 
> Well I tried the ae package and the ligature mapping changed, but is still
> there.
> 
> Thanks anyhow.
> 
> John Mullen
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melchior Rabe [mailto:Mel...@gm...]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 4:54 PM
> To: mik...@li...
> Subject: AW: [MiKTeX] Suppressing Ligatures
> 
> 
> Hi John,
> 
> > While the use of ligatures for ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl. does make the
> > output look nicer, the resulting font substitution makes a resulting PDF
> > file unsearchable for words containing those ligatures.  Such files also
> > produces rather strange output on screen readers.  I'd like to be able
to
> > disable these five ligatures when producing files for which the
ligatures
> > present a problem.
> > 
> > Is anyone aware of a method to do this that does not involve 
> > modifying each
> > and every instance of these letter combinations?
> 
> \usepackage{ae} should work
> 
> HTH MELLE
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> In remembrance
> www.osdn.com/911/
> _______________________________________________
> MiKTeX-Users mailing list
> MiK...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/miktex-users
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek
> Welcome to geek heaven.
> http://thinkgeek.com/sf
> _______________________________________________
> MiKTeX-Users mailing list
> MiK...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/miktex-users
> 
> 

_______________________________________________________________________
Freeserve AnyTime, only £13.99 per month with one month's FREE trial!
For more information visit http://www.freeserve.com/time/ or call free on
0800 970 8890




-------------------------------------------------------
This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek
Welcome to geek heaven.
http://thinkgeek.com/sf
_______________________________________________
MiKTeX-Users mailing list
MiK...@li...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/miktex-users