# Does the minionpro package has problems with spacing in math mode (like mathspec)?

I recently started using the open type Minion Pro font with mathspec in XeLaTeX. But I noticed a major drawback: mathspec has problems with character spacing in math mode because Minion Pro is not a true math font. My question is, does the minionpro package for LaTeX deal with this problem in anyway? or should I just continue using mathspec and try to adjust the character spacing manually?

This probably warrants its own post, but is using the MnSymbol package benefit when using mathspec? So far my formulas containing Greek letters are displaying correctly without loading Mnsymbol.

• Welcome to TeX-SX! Have a look at our starter page for a quick intro if you wish to familiarize yourself with our format. Jul 28 '13 at 18:57
• BTW, there is an OpenType Minion Math font that can be used with unicode-math package. Jul 28 '13 at 19:08
• @KhaledHosny, thanks for the suggestion, but those fonts seem to be very expensive. Nothing an student can afford... Jul 30 '13 at 13:21

I'm not sure if this is accepted, but I'm going to answer my own question in case someone finds this page. It appears that minionpro (and myriadpro) DOES deal with math specific kerning and spacing.
I used the FontPro scripts to convert the MinionPro opentype font included in Adobe CS to the Type1 format and install the 'minionpro' package (the script deals with everything). Then I invoked it using \usepackage[textlf,mathlf,minionint]{MinionPro} (no need to load MnSymbol as it is loaded automatically). The results are beautiful:
Compare this to the output produced by the mathspec package and xetex (even with mathspec option \setminwhitespace[1000] to manually increase the spacing): Notice how the spacing, particularly between the 'f' and the '(' and between the 'e' and 'j' is not correct. Also, the \varepsilon command seems to print the symbol using Computer Modern. To be fair, mathspec does provide a way to manually adjust the spacing on a character by character basis, but it was well worth the trouble to install 'minionpro' the old-fashioned way and let it take care of the kerning. As a plus, I can now use the microtype package to its full capacity.