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New TeX engines compared: LuaTeX, ConTeXt and XeTeX

123 points by idle 15y ago

imurray 15y ago
The two biggest differences I noticed when I tried XeTeX was 1) the pdf files were much smaller than from pdflatex, and 2) I couldn't use microtype [1] with XeTeX. I stuck with pdflatex to use microtype (which is awesome), and use pdfsizeopt [2] to crush the size of my pdfs. (More details: LuaTeX also makes small pdfs and might be the way to go, but I haven't tried it much. The size advantage over pdflatex depends on the fonts in use. There is apparently microtype support for XeTeX in the works.) [1] ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/microtype/microtype.pdf [2] http://code.google.com/p/pdfsizeopt/ http://code.google.com/p/pdfsizeopt/ and my notes on it: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/compnotes/latex.html#pdfsquish http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/compnotes/latex.html#...
chalst 15y ago
False presupposition in the title: Context is not a Tex engine, it is a format, either for Pdftex (Context Mk2) or Luatex (either Context Mk4 or Mk2).
- shadowfox 15y ago
  In the link the top rated comment makes the same observation.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
I have used LaTex to write a few books. I usually use TexShop for OS X which uses XeTex so you get the unicode support, etc. Again, for the Mac, the Aquamacs version of Emacs has goot LaTex support built in, and is a good alternative to TexShop.
- cal2 15y ago
  Your comment sounds like TeXShop only uses XeTeX, which is not true. TeXShop certainly has the option to use XeTeX, along with plain TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and other variants. :-)
hsmyers 15y ago
Not what I'd call 'New'---these have been around for a while and depending on you needs do quite well. I prefer XeTeX because as one of the answers said, 'fonts just work'.
szany 15y ago
If anyone still needs convincing that these are superior to, say, Word: http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex
jff 15y ago
http://www.kergis.com/en/kertex.html http://www.kergis.com/en/kertex.html KerTeX is nice and small.

123 points by idle 15y ago

The two biggest differences I noticed when I tried XeTeX was 1) the pdf files were much smaller than from pdflatex, and 2) I couldn't use microtype [1] with XeTeX. I stuck with pdflatex to use microtype (which is awesome), and use pdfsizeopt [2] to crush the size of my pdfs. (More details: LuaTeX also makes small pdfs and might be the way to go, but I haven't tried it much. The size advantage over pdflatex depends on the fonts in use. There is apparently microtype support for XeTeX in the works.) [1] ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/microtype/microtype.pdf [2] http://code.google.com/p/pdfsizeopt/ http://code.google.com/p/pdfsizeopt/ and my notes on it: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/compnotes/latex.html#pdfsquish http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/imurray2/compnotes/latex.html#...

chalst 15y ago

False presupposition in the title: Context is not a Tex engine, it is a format, either for Pdftex (Context Mk2) or Luatex (either Context Mk4 or Mk2).

shadowfox 15y ago
In the link the top rated comment makes the same observation.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

I have used LaTex to write a few books. I usually use TexShop for OS X which uses XeTex so you get the unicode support, etc. Again, for the Mac, the Aquamacs version of Emacs has goot LaTex support built in, and is a good alternative to TexShop.

cal2 15y ago
Your comment sounds like TeXShop only uses XeTeX, which is not true. TeXShop certainly has the option to use XeTeX, along with plain TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and other variants. :-)

hsmyers 15y ago

Not what I'd call 'New'---these have been around for a while and depending on you needs do quite well. I prefer XeTeX because as one of the answers said, 'fonts just work'.

szany 15y ago

If anyone still needs convincing that these are superior to, say, Word: http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex

jff 15y ago

http://www.kergis.com/en/kertex.html http://www.kergis.com/en/kertex.html KerTeX is nice and small.