LuaTeX is a Unicode-capable extension of TeX which integrates the scripting language Lua. Use this tag if your question is about LuaTeX or LuaLaTeX specific problems and is not related to standard (La)TeX. For ConTeXt related questions use {context-mkiv}.
152
votes
5answers
23k views
Differences between LuaTeX, ConTeXt and XeTeX
I’m interested in the differences and commonalities between the “new” (La)TeX processors:
LuaTeX,
XeTeX, and
ConTeXt.
Personally, I’ve only used XeTeX so far and without having the time to try out ...
86
votes
5answers
8k views
LaTeX3 versus pure Lua
Reading this site for the last nearly two years I've learned a lot about LaTeX3 (which I had previously understood to be a defunct pipe dream) and LuaTeX (of which I was previously totally unaware). ...
65
votes
8answers
6k views
Drawbacks of XeTeX/LuaTeX
Currently I use pdflatex to process my documents, but I want to be with the cool kids and switch to XeTeX or LuaTeX. My documents are moderately multilingual (main text in portuguese or english, ...
39
votes
1answer
454 views
The ^^ notation in various engines
Basically, how does the ^^^... notation work in LuaTeX and XeTeX, exactly?
In 8-bit TeX engines (recent TeX, eTeX, pdfTeX, at least), two consecutive identical catcode 7 characters (typically ^), ...
36
votes
4answers
617 views
Are XeTeX and LuaTeX platform dependent?
One of the main goals that Don Knuth had when developing TeX (other than the obvious one of creating high-quality documents) was a 100% platform independence. A document produced on one system should ...
35
votes
4answers
2k views
Abandon LaTeX2e for LaTeX3 or LuaTeX
I think my question is: Should I abandon pdflatex, possibly for xetex or context, and a TeX/LaTeX based macro writing approach, possibly for a LuaTeX or LaTeX3 based approach?
Possibly relevant to ...
34
votes
4answers
5k views
What is a simple example of something you can do with LuaTeX?
I've heard that with LuaTeX, you can embed Lua code in your document that work directly with TeX internals, making it possible to do several things that are hard to do with macros. What is a good ...
33
votes
2answers
934 views
Can one (more or less) automatically suppress ligatures for certain words?
One of the major attractions -- for me at least -- of typesetting my papers in (La)TeX is its automated and fully transparent use of typographic ligatures. However, as Knuth pointed out in the ...
33
votes
1answer
505 views
How to suppress a “Rare” ligature that pre-empts a “Common” ligature for the same character pair?
In several documents I'm creating with LuaLaTeX (using MacTeX2012 on a Mac that's running MacOS X 10.7.5), I primarily use the Adobe-issued font Garamond Premier Pro as the main text font. I use this ...
33
votes
1answer
913 views
Frequently loaded packages: Differences between XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX
Adding the missing member to pdfLaTeX vs. XeLaTeX and pdfLaTeX vs. LuaLaTeX, here's the last of the big three: XeLaTeX vs. LuaLaTeX.
Where would a typical template for XeLaTeX differ from one for ...
33
votes
1answer
470 views
Is luatex as secure as pdftex?
My texmf.cnf file contains these lines:
% Allow TeX \openin, \openout, or \input on filenames starting with `.'
% (e.g., .rhosts) or outside the current tree (e.g., /etc/passwd)?
% a (any) : ...
29
votes
3answers
2k views
Using LuaTeX as a replacement for pdfTeX
In this question Differences between LuaTeX, ConTeXt and XeTeX various differences between LuaTeX and XeTeX (and ConTeXt) are discussed. And in this question Using XeLaTeX instead of pdfLaTeX a recipe ...
28
votes
0answers
429 views
The Last Obstacle — Measuring sidebearings in LuaLaTeX
I've just realised that this question might be interpreted as a duplicate of Accessing side-bearings in LuaTeX, and therefore eligible to be closed as such. Apologies for the lapse of memory; I'll ...
26
votes
3answers
678 views
Create bitmap within TeX file
I'd like to create a bitmap (black and white) from within LuaTeX (or pdfTeX) and rescale it afterwards. For example (a 4x4 bitmap) could be made by
\makebitmap{0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0}
I ...
26
votes
1answer
1k views
Which Lua environment should I use with LuaTeX (LuaLaTeX)?
Lua code environment
I moved on to XeTeX (XeLaTeX) a while ago. I was using pdfLaTeX before that, but now I'm quite comfortable with XeLaTeX.
Now, I'd like to use LuaLaTeX to embed Lua in some LaTeX ...
26
votes
2answers
1k views
microtype settings for dummies
More than a year ago, a friend of mine was totally excited about microtype features in LaTeX. He was talking about it quite a bit and then said to me: "Show me your document, let me input some lines ...
26
votes
1answer
737 views
Why does it take LuaLaTeX so long to load fonts and can I speed it up?
To test Mico's upcoming selnolig package, I tried out LuaLaTeX. While the overall experience for me as a pdfLaTeX end-user was very similar, I noticed that LuaLaTeX takes a long time to load fonts. ...
25
votes
4answers
827 views
Bounding box for each letter
How can I take input text and replace each character with a solid (and/or hollow) rectangle representing the bounding box for that character? In the case where two characters are closer together from ...
25
votes
1answer
502 views
In lualatex, hyphenation doesn't seem to work for words that contain certain ligatures
It would seem that hyphenation does not work properly under LuaLaTeX if the hyphenation points occur at places where TeX inserts ligatures. Consider the following MWE, which (i) provides hyphenation ...
25
votes
2answers
548 views
Suppress certain ligatures generally
Whether or not certain ligatures should be used (if available in a font) is a least in theory depending on the language used. For example traditional German texts would not have an "ffl" ligature but ...
24
votes
2answers
1k views
Frequently loaded packages: Differences between pdfLaTeX and LuaLaTeX
I'm in the process of switching my LaTeX document from pdflatex to lualatex. Similar to Frequently loaded packages: Differences between pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX I would like to know, what are typical ...
23
votes
2answers
502 views
Porting the luatex/ConTeXt module “translate” to lualatex
In this question, which I posted a few weeks ago to TeX Stack Exchange, I asked how one should go about disabling specific ligatures (such as ff, fi, fl, and ffl) automatically for a list of ...
23
votes
4answers
406 views
Any suggestions/requests for features for a new package that allows disabling ligatures for (pre)selected words?
I'm starting to put together a LaTeX package, which I hope to distribute broadly, that
provides lualatex code to disable ligation of character pairs and triplets for selected words (globally within ...
22
votes
2answers
656 views
Repetition of a word on two lines
This question led to a new feature in a package:
impnattypo
There have been questions about rivers asked in the past. I'm wondering about words that are repeated in the same place on two ...
20
votes
3answers
591 views
Check all hyphenations within a document
I have a book project written in LaTeX, and I have found that quite a number of the hyphenations that TeX produced are wrong. It would be quite painful to scan the document for all hyphenation points, ...
20
votes
1answer
247 views
Bad interaction between fontspec and some lua code that performs string-related search and replace operations
I'm in the process of readying a LuaLaTeX package for "official" release to the CTAN, but I need to squash a few remaining bugs first. The bug described in this question concerns incorrect behavior of ...
20
votes
2answers
172 views
What are lccode and uccode used for?
In TeX, each of the 256 bytes has an associated \lccode and an \uccode, integers in the range [0,255] which indicate among other things how \lowercase and \uppercase act. There are of course a bunch ...
19
votes
2answers
1k views
Insert libreoffice table as input
This question led to a new package:
odsfile
Suppose you have an localc spreadsheet myspread.ods and you want to insert the content of the range H4:I40 as a table into your latex document. I ...
19
votes
2answers
2k views
An example of changing kerning of a font in LuaLaTeX
LuaLaTeX, through the luaotfload package, is able to dynamically add and modify features and properties of a font. This is performed by using the FeatureFile option in fontspec when loading a font; ...
18
votes
4answers
1k views
Reading data from a relational database into a LaTeX table
I'm using Tex Live 2009 on Debian squeeze. I can upgrade if I really, really have to, but I'd rather not. i was wondering if it would be possible to do the following.
Given some data in a ...
18
votes
3answers
739 views
Detect which TeX engine is used
How can I detect inside a TeX file which engine (pdftex/xetex/luatex) is used to compile the file? Is there a LaTeX package that provides this functionality?
18
votes
1answer
424 views
Problem with kerning using LuaLaTeX
I am having a problem with kerning while using LuaLaTeX. In my example, the pair “AT” does not render well. This is clear by comparing LuaLaTeX output with XeLaTeX's, which from the same code renders ...
17
votes
2answers
298 views
Can the Lua part of LuaTeX know about tokens?
Using \directlua and tex.print, it is possible to send strings of characters back and forth between TeX and Lua. Let's take an example: starting with a macro \A, I pass its replacement text to Lua and ...
17
votes
5answers
1k views
Considerations when migrating from XeTeX to LuaTeX?
What are the things to know when moving from XeTeX to LuaTeX, particularly when it comes to TTF/OTF support and OpenType features?
17
votes
2answers
296 views
Issues with TeX sub-formula formatting
As generally acknowledged TeX offers superb formatting capabilities for math in an automated fashion. Nevertheless there are some areas with clear deficiencies that one either has to accept or ...
16
votes
6answers
1k views
What are the advantages of Lua over other scripting languages for a TeX implementation?
The question is inspired by Martin Schröder's answer to I am new to TeX. Should I use LaTeX, XeLaTeX, …? as well as my two previous questions on this forum:
Automatic document update
Generate LaTeX ...
16
votes
5answers
549 views
Topics for a book about LuaTeX
I am writing a book about LuaTeX - what topics would you like to see in that book? More beginner's topics or more advanced sections? Both? I'd like to hear your opinion.
16
votes
3answers
442 views
“Lua tree” (analogue of texmf tree)
I have a lua file that I would use in many of my TeX's documents, loading it with dofile().
I thought it was ok if I simply put it in the (local) texmf tree*, but this doesn't work. Instead I have ...
16
votes
2answers
597 views
LuaJIT and LuaTeX
Is it possible to change the Lua engine in LuaTeX to LuaJIT?
Will it be as simple as replacing the Lua5.1 source code in the LuaTeX tarball with the LuaJIT source, or does it require (drastic) ...
16
votes
1answer
776 views
Why do I need Lua or LaTeX3 in a plain old technical document?
I wrote and maintain a couple hundred page computer related technical spec in XeLaTeX. I use tables, figures, bitfields, algorithms and other typical trappings. I'm intrigued by LuaTeX and LaTeX3, ...
16
votes
1answer
669 views
Is there latexmk functionality for LuaTeX?
I am a big fan of latexmk and lately I have been looking a bit towards LuaTeX. However I am am yet to find a way to get the functionality of latexmk (mainly recompilation on changes and automatic ...
15
votes
3answers
561 views
Starting with TeX (not LaTeX)
I've been using LaTeX for 3 years and I'm decided to switch to (plain) TeX. For the moment I'm reading The TeXbook for the third time (I quietly start to read the double-danger signed paragraphs) and ...
15
votes
2answers
610 views
Create a LibreOffice spreadsheet from luatex
After reading this amazing answer, I'm wondering if it possible to do the same thing but the other way round, that is create a LibreOffice spreadsheet from luatex, exporting data from the tex file to ...
15
votes
1answer
581 views
PDF file size with LuaLaTeX vs XeLaTeX
I have a set one one page documents written in LaTex.
The same file compiled in LuaLaTeX is about 23 times larger than when it is complied using XeLaTex (about 641 KB vs 28 kb). I tried with a couple ...
15
votes
3answers
378 views
Conflict between microtype, LuaLaTeX, and otf fonts when typesetting material in small-caps
I'm using the microtype package (microtype beta 2.5 build 08) to modify my document and I'd like to retain its functionality across all font shapes with the exception of small-caps (\scshape). How do ...
15
votes
2answers
1k views
Difference between setting parindent and hangindent
Is there a difference between setting
\parindent to 1em
and to setting
\parindent to 0em, \hangindent to 1em, and \hangafter to -1
that shows in practical use? The nodes created by TeX are ...
15
votes
1answer
834 views
fontspec, lua, microtype: Renderer=Basic no longer working for specific font styles
You may have noticed that, as of now,* letterspacing small capitals is not as easy as it was in pdfTeX, where we could simply combine \textsc with microtype's \textls. Consider this example, which ...
14
votes
4answers
756 views
Bembo, Bembo Book or Garamond Premier Pro? And how to exploit all their features with LuaLaTex?
I am allowed to use one of these fonts (or the three of them if I want) to edit a document.
Here is the list of the Bembo fonts I have :
Bembo-Bold.otf Bembo-ExtraBoldOsF.otf
...
14
votes
3answers
765 views
Hiring someone to help me with LaTeX for my PhD thesis
I do not know whether this is an appropriate question, but I was carrying it around for quite some weeks and now it just has to come out.
I am working on my PhD thesis. My thesis will include a long ...
14
votes
4answers
448 views
How to read a file with luatex
I tried to read a file with lua and set the content as normal text in my document, but I didn't worked it out. Here my code:
\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{luatextra}
\usepackage{filecontents}
...
