How to easily use UTF-8 with LaTeX?

Question

It's probably a stupid question, but I cannot find any easy answers online, and the answers are sometimes contradictory.

I am writing a document that uses a few strange alphabets. I want to use some LaTeX variant for typesetting, but nothing works. For example, if I take this document with four example words (one in Russian, one in Czech, one in latin with length indication, one in Vietnamese)

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}
Днепр kůň dominī Ngữ
\end{document}

and put it through xelatex, which people recommend for Unicode, all I get is this

which is not exactly what I want.

What is the easiest way of putting UTF-8 encoded file on one side and getting actual text on the other side?

edit:

To add more information.

I am using Ubuntu operating system, and I want to use some font appropriate for a bigger thesis (something like Computer Modern is fine, although I personally prefer Palatino-style fonts)

Answer 1

You can use XeLaTeX, but inputenc shouldn't be loaded. Instead use fontspec and define a font that has the required glyphs.

Say you have installed the XITS fonts on your system; then you can do

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{XITS}

\begin{document}
Днепр kůň dominī Ngữ
\end{document}

If the font is not installed on the system, it's still possible to use it (you need a full TeX Live)

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[
  Ligatures=TeX,
  Extension=.otf,
  UprightFont=*-regular,
  ItalicFont=*-italic,
  BoldFont=*-bold,
  BoldItalicFont=*-bolditalic,
]{xits}

\begin{document}
Днепр kůň dominī Ngữ
\end{document}

Another easy choice is Linux Libertine:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{libertine} % also loads fontspec

\begin{document}
Днепр kůň dominī Ngữ
\end{document}

For getting real multilingual support, you still need either Polyglossia or babel.

Answer 2

I don't use Ubuntu but Ubuntu should provide a package for Linux Libertine (if it is not installed by default) and that supports all of the languages:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Linux Libertine O}

\begin{document}
Днепр kůň dominī Ngữ
\end{document}

To figure out which fonts were installed, I looked in /usr/share/fonts and paid particular attention to the opentype fonts there. I discovered a directory /usr/share/fonts/otf-linux-libertine-ibx/ which contained, for example, /usr/share/fonts/otf-linux-libertine-ibx/LinLibertine_R.otf. Yours will more likely be something like /usr/share/fonts/opentype/LinLibertine-R.otf.

To get basic information about the font, including the name to feed to fontspec:

otfinfo -i /usr/share/fonts/otf-linux-libertine-ibx/LinLibertine_R.otf 

which produced:

Family:              Linux Libertine O
Subfamily:           Regular
Full name:           Linux Libertine O
PostScript name:     LinLibertineO
Version:             Version 5.3.0 
Unique ID:           FontForge 2.0 : Linux Libertine O : 2-7-2012
Designer:            Philipp H. Poll
Designer URL:        http://www.linuxlibertine.org
Manufacturer:        Philipp H. Poll
Vendor URL:          http://www.linuxlibertine.org
Copyright:           Linux Libertine by Philipp H. Poll,
Open Font under Terms of following Free Software Licenses:
GPL (General Public License) with font-exception and OFL (Open Font License).
Created with FontForge (http://fontforge.sf.net)
Sept 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2012
License URL:         http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html AND http://scripts.sil.org/OFL
License Description: GPL- General Public License AND OFL-Open Font License
Vendor ID:           PfEd

To check which scripts (alphabets) the font supports:

otfinfo -s /usr/share/fonts/otf-linux-libertine-ibx/LinLibertine_R.otf 

which gave me:

DFLT            Default
cyrl            Cyrillic
cyrl.SRB        Cyrillic/Serbian
grek            Greek
hebr            Hebrew
latn            Latin
latn.AZE        Latin/Azeri
latn.CRT        Latin/Crimean Tatar
latn.DEU        Latin/German
latn.MOL        Latin/Moldavian
latn.ROM        Latin/Romanian
latn.TRK        Latin/Turkish
math            Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols

To typeset the languages correctly, you will want to use either polyglossia or babel. It is probably better to try the former first but not all languages are supported. Read the documentation to figure out how to specify and call the languages you need. This will ensure that things like hyphenation are correctly tuned for each of the languages you use in the document.

EDIT

For Linux Libertine specifically, you may be best off loading libertine as explained in egreg's answer. But if you would prefer to use a font you've got which doesn't have a TeX package, you can use the above method to figure out if it is likely to work and how to specify it to fontspec.