[luatex] LuaTeX file almost 2.5x bigger

[Hans Hagen]

On 31-7-2010 8:10, Robert wrote:
> On 31.07.10 17:58, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
>>> Which is what microtypography is all about: improving the visual
>>> appearance *without being noticeable*.
>>
>> The thing is: the profound level of unnoticeable that came out of the
>> statistical tests for font expansion nullifies the 'improving the
>> visual appearance' goal. Wholly unnoticed improvements are not
>> actually improvements at all.
>
> I don't believe that they go unnoticed. Less hyphenations are a clear
> improvement, less overfull boxes even more so. And I've come across a
> considerable number of statements along the lines: "Gosh, all them
> overfull boxes have vanished!"

I normally enable emergencystretch and let tex be a bit more tolerant 
which then hardly gives overfull boxes. If someone starts complaining 
about my docs having too many overfull boxes i'd either change my 
settings or adapt my writing. Applying hz may improve matters a bit but 
it might as well introduce other artefacts.

> My impression is that Hans may have been referring to the first tests,
> which you carried out at NTG and Dante in 1999, where *level 2*
> expansion wasn't available yet.

Level 2 was there already (actually I never used level 1), maybe not in 
distributions but definitely on my machine.

Hans



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