[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

[Philipp Stephani]

Am 30.09.2010 um 20:12 schrieb Elliott Roper:

> What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite?

Yes, and that won't change until LaTeX becomes a second ConTeXt.

> Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX?

Nobody can give a definitive answer to all these questions. For the moment, if pdflatex works for you, stick with it. For me, I can't reliably switch to anything else until OTF math and microtypography work as expected.

> But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it?

By not using LaTeX. Until there is a stable, modern foundation (LuaTeX plus an appropriate kernel), I wouldn't recommend LaTeX for many things outside the world of writing academic papers and theses. Mose people interested in design and typography use InDesign or QuarkXPress, and ConTeXt might be an option, too.