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Encoding

Sgmltexi has an incomplete support for ISO 8859-n encodings. It is incomplete because Texinfo is not able to reproduce all characters. There are two ways to define the use of one encoding with Sgmltexi: the option --input-encoding and the attribute charset inside the sgmltexi element.

The choice has a different result. The option --input-encoding generate a transformation of characters into SGML entities, and back to Texinfo code. This way, the Texinfo code is surely pure ASCII (ISO 646), and entities that have no corresponding Texinfo code, are shown like [ETH   ]. The use of the charset attribute results only on the command @documentencoding; on some occasions, the result may be good or not. Depending on the better result, it may be used one option or the other.

A good strategy may be the use of the charset attribute in any case, adding the option --input-encoding when Texinfo doesn't generate a good result alone, usually when typesetting for printing.

Standard and non-standard entities

Sgmltexi DTD include all standard ISO 8879 entities (ISOnum, ISOpub, ISOtech, ISOlat1, ISOlat2). In fact, non all entities are really supported by Texinfo, and when an unsupported entity is used, it is shown on the final typesetting like a name enclosed inside square brackets, like [ETH   ].

Sgmltexi uses some non-standard entities, needed for compatibility with Texinfo. These are shown on the following table.

SGML macro Texinfo command Appearing Description
&dots; @dots{} ... three dots
&enddots; @enddots{} .... four dots
&TeX; @TeX{} TeX the name "TeX"
&result; @result{} =>
&expansion; @expansion{} ==>
&print; @print{} -|
&error; @error{} error-->
&point; @point{} -!-
&today; @today{} 26 January 2003
&esexcl; @! ! ending sentence exclamation mark
&esperiod; @. . ending sentence period
&nes; @: not ending sentence
&esquest; @? ? ending sentence question mark