[XeTeX] The future of XeTeX

[Joachim Trinkwitz]

Am 31.07.2012 um 11:06 schrieb Keith J. Schultz <keithjschultz at web.de>:

> One of the reasons why I stopped using LaTeX was its lack of support for system fonts.
> Xe(La)TeX change all that. Yet, when I look at fontspec, I said what in all hell do I have to
> do all that (setting up all kinds of features, and God knows what).

Most fonts, system, free or commercial, will function out of the box, without fiddling with the fontspec options. Those are for the few exceptional cases or for certain special needs like font variants, color etc. (OK, speaking from the perspective of a user who don't need languages with non-latin scripts …)

> Well that is another thing to keep in mind. For whom are all those features in Xe(La)TeX needed.
> A very elite group of people that understand typography and its use. Not, the average user.

I tend to think this when people a whining over the lack of microtype support in XeTeX, cause I don't believe each and every printed page need the perfection of Gutenberg's Bible prints. But then, the majority of (La-/XeLa- etc.)TeX users are just the types of writers which are passionate about typography, at least much more than the 'average user' of other writing systems …

Joachim

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Dr. Joachim Trinkwitz     E-Mail: jtr at uni-bonn.de
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