Aleph

Aleph (formerly known as e-Omega), maintained by Giuseppe Bilotta, is a project whose aim is to provide an extension to Knuth's TeX comprising both Omega 1.15 and e-TeX 2.1 features. Its main goals are stability, speed and power. It supports bidirectional typesetting and the usage of large fonts.

(In the future, pdfTeX may integrate those features as well.)

A similar project is XeTeX, which was originally developed under Mac OS X but is now available for Linux, as well as Windows as an unofficial build.

Manual

• Aleph (by Hans)
• Omega samples
• Aleph in ConTeXt: A Guide to the Perplexed on this wiki.

Mailing list

aleph@ntg.nl

Setup

Idris wrote in a mail from 2006-01-02:

If you already have the regular omega support files in MiKTeX etc, then great. Otherwise, here is a set of instructions for ConTeXt users:

1. Get the Omega support files omega.zip and omegafonts.zip
2. Get rid of the following directories from omega.zip (not really necessary but if you want to be efficient):
   texmf/eomega
   texmf/omega/encodings
3. Put files in texmf-local
4. Compile the Aleph format:

   mktexlsr
   texexec --make en -tex=aleph

   or for ConTeXt versions since May 2006, use instead:

   mktexlsr
   texexec --make en --aleph

5. Always start Aleph files with '%tex=aleph output=dvipdfmx' or use the commandline

   texexec --aleph --output=dvipdfmx

Now test: texexec the following file (in utf-8). Download

Study \def\ArabicUTF: it uses raw Omega/Aleph commands, but see also m-gamma (in the ConTeXt distro) for some higher-level commands

\definefiltersynonym
\definefiltersequence
\usefiltersequence

% tex=aleph output=dvipdfmx
\hoffset=0pt

\def\ArabicUTF{\ocp\UTFArUni=inutf8 %% in88596
               %\ocp\UTFArUni=in88596
               \ocp\UniCUni=uni2cuni
               \ocp\CUniArab=cuni2oar % ocp's used

               \ocplist\UTFArOCP=
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \UTFArUni
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \UniCUni
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \CUniArab
               \nullocplist           % ocp list

               \pushocplist\UTFArOCP} % apply this filter sequence

\input m-gamma.tex
\input type-omg.tex
\switchtobodyfont[omarb,12pt] %

\textdir TRT%
\pardir TRT%
\ArabicUTF

\starttext


 ، ۪

 ؛ ؟

 ء آ أ ؤ إ ئ ا ب ة ت ث ج ح خ د

 ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ

 ـ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ى ي ً  ٌ  ٍ َ  ُ

 ِ ّ  ْ

 ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ ٪ ٫

 ٬ ٰ ٱ پ

 چ

 ژ

 ڤ گ

 ھ

 ۀ ہ ۃ ې ے ۓ ۔ ە

 ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹

% ا ب ج د ه و ز


\stoptext

Here's another file: Download

% tex=aleph output=dvipdfmx
\input m-gamma.tex
\input type-omg.tex

\def\ArabicUTF{\ocp\UTFArUni=inutf8 %% in88596
               %\ocp\UTFArUni=in88596
               \ocp\UniCUni=uni2cuni
               \ocp\CUniArab=cuni2oar
               \ocplist\UTFArOCP=
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \UTFArUni
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \UniCUni
               \addbeforeocplist 1 \CUniArab
               \nullocplist
               \pushocplist\UTFArOCP}

\setupbodyfont[omlgc,12pt]

\showframe[text]

\starttext%

\start

\ArabicUTF\switchtobodyfont[omarb]%
     \textdir TRT\pardir TRT


بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الله اكبر من
أن يوصف

\stop

\textbullet\ This is a test coffin

{\tfb \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\tfc \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\tfd \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\tfx \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\tfxx \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\bf \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

{\bfc \textbullet\ This is a test coffin}

\startgreek

\textbullet\ A B G D a b g d

{\tfc \textbullet\ A B G D a b g d}

{\bf \textbullet\ A B G D a b g d}

{\bfc \textbullet\ A B G D a b g d}

\stopgreek

\startarab

`rby:

\textbullet\ A b t th j H kh

{\tfc \textbullet\ A b t th j H kh}

{\bf \textbullet\ A b t th j H kh}

{\bfc \textbullet\ A b t th j H kh}

fArsy:

{\tfc \textbullet\ A b p t th j ch H kh}

\starturdu

ArdU:

{\tfc \textbullet\ A b p t 't th j ch H kh}

\stopurdu

`rby:

bsm ALLah Al-rrHmn Al-rrHym

fArsy:

bh nAm khdAwnd b-kh-sh-nde mhrbAn

\starturdu

ArdU:

ALLah kE nAm sE jw rHmAn w rHym hE

\stopurdu

\stoparab

\stoptext

Usage

TODO: can someone with more experience describe how to use large fonts and other features? (See: To-Do List)