Tell me more ×
TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and related typesetting systems. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 17 down vote favorite
2

What are the things to know when moving from XeTeX to LuaTeX, particularly when it comes to TTF/OTF support and OpenType features?

share|improve this question

5 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

The only difference is for Linux: OpenType or TrueType fonts from the TeX directory structure, e.g. the texgyre fonts, have to be assigned by its filename for XeTeX, e.g. \fontspec{texgyre-pagella.otf}. LuaTeX itself also searches the TeX font directories, the reason why LuaTeX finds such font defined by its family name, e.g. \fontspec{TexGyre-Pagella}. For MiKTeX it should make no difference, fonts should be found.

The package mathspec works only for XeTeX. And polyglossia doesn't work with LuaLaTeX yet.

share|improve this answer
In XeTeX on Linux, I currently use the font name, not the font filename. For example, I do \fontspec{Linux Libertine O} and it works. Does fontspec work with LuaLaTeX? I get an error when I run lualatex on a tex file using fontspec (using TL2009)... – ℝaphink Jul 20 '11 at 14:47
Are you sure that font names don't work on TeXLive? The font database is generated by lualatex/luaotfload/mkluatexfontsdb and if a font is found at all why shouldn't the font name be in the database too? There is certainly no problem on miktex, lualatex accepts even a lot of name variants like \setmainfont{TeXGyrePagella}. – Ulrike Fischer Jul 20 '11 at 15:03
@Ulrike: I wrote, that XeTeX needs the file name! – Herbert Jul 20 '11 at 15:34
Ah. Sorry I read it the other way round. Doesn't this here solve the problem: tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-350003.4.4? (But it can also lead to trouble if too much folders are searched and used by xetex. XeTeX doesn't like it very much if a font exists in two variants.) – Ulrike Fischer Jul 20 '11 at 16:01
1  
@Ulrike, sure that's the problem but LuaTeX solved it in user friendly way, XeTeX not ... and of course, all fonts should go into one system and one local folder. – Herbert Jul 21 '11 at 9:47
show 6 more comments
up vote 4 down vote

If you want to move from XeLaTeX to LuaLaTeX, you should read lualatex-doc. If you want to use from ConTeX MkII to MkIV, many things will change.

share|improve this answer
I'm interested in moving to a modern cutting-edge system, and mostly benefiting from font expansion while still keep an easy way to manage TTF/OTF fonts with OpenType features. I do not plan on using ConTeXt though, but rather keep with LaTeX for now (I'm using specific LaTeX packages such as bibleref). – ℝaphink Jul 20 '11 at 21:12
up vote 4 down vote

There are some caveats with multilingual typesetting with OpenType shaping features; I'm not really the one to ask about it, though. XeTeX uses the ICU to do its OpenType magic, which as I understand things is a lot more comprehensive than what's currently done by LuaTeX and its supporting machinery. For example, unless things have changed recently, I don't believe that LuaTeX will be able to typeset Indic languages correctly.

XeTeX isn't a silver bullet here either, but I think its coverage is more comprehensive.

share|improve this answer
Most of my needs as far as OpenType features are concerned are ligatures, letter/word spacing, oldstyle/uppercase numbers, small caps, alternate forms. Nothing really fancy. – ℝaphink Jul 21 '11 at 8:24
In that case no problem :) – Will Robertson Jul 25 '11 at 9:24
up vote 4 down vote

As I actually ended up switching from XeTeX to LuaTeX, I've met a few other problems.

Most notably:

  • LetterSpace and WordSpace options in fontspec are not supported in LuaTeX, so you have to use textls from microtype like in PDFTeX in order to achieve tracking;
  • textls sometimes break with small caps (see textls breaks smallcaps with luatex).
share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

My main motivation for moving from XeTeX to LuaTeX was movies. As it is said in my posts (Can XeLaTeX | LuaTeX import movies ?, Why \movieref does not work under XeLaTeX) XeTeX has troubles with importing movies. The latter one is still unresolved.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.