# [XeTeX] \beginL and colour

Hans Hagen pragma at wxs.nl
Mon Nov 15 14:56:50 CET 2004

```Jonathan Kew wrote:

> Yes, having realized what's happening, this is an inherent weakness in
> using \special's to affect the text, in conjunction with the e-TeX bidi
> mechanism that ends up reversing horizontal lists. I don't anticipate
> doing anything to try and fix it in XeTeX for the time being.

makes sense, it's a non trivial problem

> Note that it should be possible to implement arbitrary text color
> changes by using \fontname to retrieve the current font name, adding a
> "color=...." attribute, and setting a new font. In this case, the color
> is associated directly with the actual text characters, so it will work
> properly despite the reordering.

what rules apply for the font spec then?

Hans

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