[XeTeX] xetex vs. pages

[Stefano Franchi]

On Nov 18, 2005, at 5:54 AM, Robert Voogdgeert wrote:

>> On 17/11/2005, at 10am, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>>
>>> One more thing ---
>>>
>>> XeTeX (and TeX in general) will break your paragraphs into
>>> beautiful lines while Pages will always look much uglier. The only
>>> piece of software that seems to come even close to TeX's ability to
>>> make beautiful typography is InDesign which, I believe, has lifted
>>> at least some of TeX's algorithms.
>>
>> Actually, InDesign arguably is *more* capable than TeX, since it
>> features optical kerning (that is, on-the-fly kerning between any
>> arbitrary characters). This would be something worth investigating
>> for XeTeX if anyone is looking for a research project :)
>>
>> Will
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> XeTeX mailing list
>> postmaster at tug.org
>> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
>
> Actually, ID is not only more capable than TeX with regard to optical
> kerning (which is with good OTF less preferable than metrics kerning by
> the way) it also has optical margin alignment on both the left and 
> right
> margin. Moreover it the margin alignment is aware of the writing
> direction of the language, l2r or r2l. That is, the Middle Eastern
> Version is.
>

Slightl off-topic, but just for the sake of clarifying the  TeX/vs. 
other typesetting programs comparison:

  isn't pdfTeX (with the microtype package) capable of the same 
microtypographic adjustments attributed to InDesign? I have no 
experience with the latter, but from the brief description above it 
seems like they are both covering the same ground. Or is 'metrical 
kerning' different?




Best,

Stefano

__________________________________________________
Stefano Franchi
Department of Philosophy                  Ph:  (64) 9 373-7599 x83940
University Of Auckland			Fax: (64) 9 373-7408
Private Bag 92019				s.franchi at auckland.ac.nz
Auckland
New Zealand