%!TEX TS-program = xelatex
%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{fontspec,xltxtra,xunicode} 
\defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text} 
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text,Scale=1.0]{Arial Unicode MS} 

\title{International/Unicode \LaTeX}
\author{Andre Schappo}
\date{February 2008}  

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\setlength{\labelsep}{2em}

\section{Chinese (中文)}
\begin{description}
\setlength{\itemindent}{4em}
\item[一 。] 北京
\item[二 。] 南京
\item[三 。] 上海
\item[四 。] 西安
\end{description}

\section{Japanese (日本語)}
\begin{description}
\setlength\itemindent{4em}
\item[一 。] 東京
\item[二 。] 京都
\item[三 。] 大阪
\item[四 。] 名古屋
\end{description}

\section{Korean (한국어)}
\begin{description}
\setlength\itemindent{4em}
\item[일.] 서울
\item[이.] 부선 
\item[삼.] 대구
\item[사.] 인천 
\end{description}

\section{Various characters taken from the Unicode Character Set}
\begin{description}
\setlength{\labelwidth}{9em}
\setlength{\itemindent}{13em}
\item[Maths:\hfill] x⁴ ≇ ∑∛∆y
\item[Smileys:\hfill] ☹ ☺
\item[Fractions:\hfill] ⅓ ⅔ ⅗ ⅚ ⅞
\item[Controls:\hfill] ␀ ␂ ␅ ␆ ␖
\item[Shapes:\hfill] ▢ ▬ ▯ △ ▶ ◄ ◎ ◵
\end{description}

\end{document}  

International & Unicode LaTeX

It is relatively easy to incorporate Unicode Characters into LaTeX documents. By being able to use Unicode Character Sets one can incorporate International Languages and many specialist characters. This is made possible by using XeTeX instead of pdflatex. XeTeX provides access to the Unicode fonts on your Computer.

I am using TeXShop on an Apple Mac Computer. To the right you will see my LaTeX source. The first two lines of the LaTeX direct TeXShop to use xelatex and utf-8.

The next consideration is "What Unicode fonts do you have on your Computer?". I have set my LaTeX to use "Arial Unicode MS". This is a font with an extensive range of glyphs, encompassing many Languages and Symbols. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) now includes "Arial Unicode MS". Most Windows computers will also have "Arial Unicode MS". I do not have stats to prove it, but I speculate that the majority of Computers will have "Arial Unicode MS".

I chose "Arial Unicode MS" to avoid "font substitution" issues. As far as Chinese Japanese and Korean is concerned it appears to have a substantial set of glyphs. It does not, though, have all glyphs for all the Unicode Character Set. Braille is lacking. Braille characters are, though, available in the "Apple Braille" and "Apple Symbols" fonts.

One can switch between fonts within a LaTeX document using the fontspec package.

The typeset pdf of my LaTeX is here.

André Schappo