This presentation will introduce the XeTeX project, an extension of TeX that integrates its typesetting capabilities with the Unicode text encoding standard, supporting all the world's scripts, and with modern font technologies provided by today's operating systems and text layout services.

XeTeX offers the potential to be “TeX for the rest of the world” in several senses, as will be discussed and demonstrated:

• Much of the intimidating complexity of managing a TeX installation—in particular, the process of installing and using new fonts—is eliminated by XeTeX's integration with the host operating system's font management. This greatly reduces the “barrier to entry” into the TeX world for many non-technical users, and provides a richer and more flexible typographic environment.
• Because XeTeX is based on Unicode, the universal character encoding standard, and uses OpenType and AAT layout features in modern fonts to support complex non-Latin writing systems, it can work with Asian, Middle Eastern, and other traditionally “difficult” languages just as readily as with European languages.
• XeTeX was initially designed and implemented for Mac OS X, leveraging several key technologies available on that platform. However, this meant it was available only to a fairly small minority of potential users. This presentation will introduce XeTeX for Linux; the benefits of XeTeX will then be available to a new and wider community of users.