web2c: MLTeX
5.4.1 MLTeX: Multi-lingual TeX
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Multi-lingual TeX ('mltex') is an extension of TeX originally written by
Michael Ferguson and now updated and maintained by Bernd Raichle. With
the advent of Unicode, it has become obsolete, though it is still
supported in Web2c in the event of bugs or compilation bugs.
MLTeX allows the use of non-existing glyphs in a font by declaring
glyph substitutions. These are restricted to substitutions of an
accented character glyph, which need not be defined in the current font,
by its appropriate '\accent' construction using a base and accent
character glyph, which do have to exist in the current font. This
substitution is automatically done behind the scenes, if necessary, and
thus MLTeX additionally supports hyphenation of words containing an
accented character glyph for fonts missing this glyph (e.g., Computer
Modern). Standard TeX suppresses hyphenation in this case.
MLTeX works at '.fmt'-creation time: the basic idea is to specify the
'-mltex' option to TeX when you '\dump' a format. Then, when you
subsequently invoke TeX and read that '.fmt' file, the MLTeX features
described below will be enabled.
Generally, you use special macro files to create an MLTeX '.fmt'
file.
The sections below describe the two new primitives that MLTeX
defines. Aside from these, MLTeX is completely compatible with standard
TeX.
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