Sstrhsrtj

What is the simplest method to tell XeTeX (not XeLaTeX) to use a font with Cyrillic letters and to apply Russian hyphenation rules?

Ideally i would like to not have to specify anything in the source files, but to get new commands rxetex and ramsxetex to compile sources in Russian.

Replace the preloaded cm text fonts with Unicode aware ones, and use them in your documents. Asumming that you have a working XeTeX installation, try the following:

1. Install the OTF version of the cm-unicode set of fonts into your system. You can download them from CTAN.




2. Run fc-cache on a terminal to update the font database cache.




3. Copy the following code into cmunfonts.tex, and input this file at the beginning of your document.

message{cm unicode fonts!}



fonttenrm="[cmunrm]" at 10 pt% roman text

fontsevenrm="[cmunrm]" at 7pt

fontfiverm="[cmunrm]" at 5pt



fonttenbf="[cmunbx]" at 10pt % boldface extended

fontsevenbf="[cmunbx]" at 7pt

fontfivebf="[cmunbx]" at 5pt



fonttentt="[cmunbtl]" at 10pt % typewriter



fonttensl="[cmunsl]" at 10pt % slanted roman



fonttenit="[cmunti]" at 10pt % text italic



endinput

Now try to xetex yourfile and see if that works.

In general, you will need to substitute the default 7bit cm text fonts with unicode text fonts in all your font definitions in your input files.

Now, to use russian hyphenation you need to use a format different than plain.fmt: that's untouchable. I recommend to you to install hyplain, the russian loader, and the hyphenation patterns (from hyph-utf8 package) from CTAN; check the documentation for hyplain (it's two pages), and at the appropriate place in the hylang.tex file, add russian as follows:

input unicode-letters

definelanguage{ru}{RU}{loadhyph-ru}

refinelanguage{ru}{RU}{hyphenmins{2}{2}frenchspacing}{nonfrenchspacing}

addaliasruss{ru}{RU}

Make the format running xetex -ini *hyplain, and call xetex ^&hyplain yourfile and it will compile with cyrillic and russian hyphenation.

Then you can make a batch file or bash script rxetex to include the line xetex ^&hyplain %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 to run your russian enabled xetex in a prompt.

I'm sorry, but I can see no way you may bypass the process of learning how to make a format.