[XeTeX] xelatex vs. pdflatex + otfinst

[Jonathan Kew]

On 2 Nov 2006, at 5:41 pm, Sebastian Hanigk wrote:

> Now the question: what do you suggest?

I won't try to answer this (I'd be biased, anyhow!), but have a  
couple of comments:

>  sometimes I get the impression that
> mathematical typesetting with xelatex isn't as good as with the
> normal TeX tools;

If you're running xelatex on Linux or Windows, or on Mac OS X using  
the xdvipdfmx output driver, then you should be able to use all the  
same math features as with standard (pdf)latex. The limitation on  
math (no virtual fonts, so only a few math typefaces are available)  
applies only when using the original xdv2pdf output driver on OS X.

(There is currently work in progress to directly support Unicode  
OpenType math fonts, in addition to legacy TeX math fonts; this is  
not yet part of the xetex release, but should appear soon.)

> furthermore I need to integrate my TeX engine with
> MetaPost.

I believe Metapost can be used with xetex; the ConTeXt people, at  
least, have been doing this for a long time.

JK