[XeTeX] 64.bit XeTex was::Re: Trying to build microtype-aware xetex

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

I read lots of messages on the XeTeX and TeX on OS X mailing lists
of the form "I'm in the middle of a project using XeTeX; how do I do ….?" This, plus
information from personal contacts, convinces me that XeTeX is heavily
used by people with real work to be done.

XeTeX runs fine on Lion, and other Macintosh systems. The minor 
problem, as others have pointed out, is that it uses the ATSUI font libraries
rather than Core Text. When Apple enabled 64 bit GUI applications in
Leopard at the end of 2007, they didn't convert ATSUI to 64 bits, so
XeTeX is a 32 bit application on the Mac. 

When we introduced 64 bit versions of TeX apps in MacTeX, timing tests showed
that the speed increase with 64 bits was minor. For that reason, adding those
64 bit versions was mildly controversial, and the need to compile XeTeX
in 64 bits isn't urgent.

Having said all of that, it would be wonderful if someone would take on the
task of converting the Macintosh portions of XeTeX from ATSUI to Core Text,
since it would remove the worry that Apple (at some distant time) would
remove the 32 bit ATSUI Library from the system, and would allow us to compile
all of TeX Live in 64 bits.

Dick Koch