[XeTeX] fontspec – only XeTeX?

[Arno Trautmann]

Hi!

Arthur Reutenauer wrote:
> 	Hello,
> 
>> I hope, someone here can help me: How deep is fontspec into XeTeX?
> 
>   Very.  I leave it to Will to describe it a bit more if he wants to,
> but to sum up, fontspec uses XeTeX-specific features at its core, which
> are implemented in very different ways in LuaTeX.
> 
>>                                                                    Is
>> there a chance for the same or a similar interface in LuaTeX?
> 
>   Yes, but someone has to write it.  And it will almost certainly not be
> exactly identical.
> 
>>                   There would be no sense to read everything about
>> fontspec and later use something totally different.
> 
>   If something like a LuaTeX "port" of fontspec is ever written, and I
> sure hope it will be some day, one can only hope that the author(s) will
> try do give it an interface similar to the original fontspec's, but I
> doubt it can be made 100% compatible.  Thus, if your question is "Will I
> be able to compile my documents unchanged under LuaTeX, using this
> hypothetical fontspec?", the answer is probably no.  Then again, if the
> ground work for a LuaTeX-fontspec is done, it should be quite easy to
> emulate the high-level interface of Will's fontspec.

Actually, my question is ”Should I take the time to read the fontspec
man, if I later will use a totally different system?“
I don’t expect my documents to survive the change to LuaTeX. And I’m
willing to read some more stuff to understand things in LuaTeX, but if
it is totally different, I probably will not spend so much time for it now.

Thank you very much for your detailed answer, this helped me much to
understand the current development.

Arno

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