TeX Capabilities with Arbitrary Fonts

Question

I am formatting 85,000 words of text in InDesign that include several (non-negotiable) .ttf and .otf fonts not canonical to LaTeX.

I'd like to switch to a TeX-based format for the following capabilities:

1. Setting well in strange shapes: http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/ShowcaseCircular.pdf

2. \length macro: http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/diminuendo.pdf

3. pdfTeX's superior justification algorithm. Particularly: protrusion, expansion, tracking, and kerning (microtype features, all but the first of which XeTeX cannot perform)

4. Per-page margin adjustment, as found in LaTeX's geometry package

I intend to substitute InDesign's optical kerning with a few manual spacing adjustments, which I understand to be an omnipresent feature of TeX-based formats.

I also need vertical and horizontal text reflection - also omnipresent, from what I've found.

What can perform the above TeX tricks on an arbitrary mix of .ttf and .otf fonts, with a high-quality PDF output?

ConTeXt may be my best bet, but its sparse documentation leaves me unsure.

Answer 1

Some exotic combination of ttf and otf fonts. Run it with xelatex or lualatex. However, if you do not have the fonts that I used choose other ones:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{DejaVu Serif}
\usepackage{multido,blindtext,shapepar}

\begin{document}
\title{A demonstration}
\author{from me to you}
\maketitle
\setmainfont{MarsFrakturOT-Normal}
\blindtext

\setmainfont[Script=arab]{ArabicTypesetting}
\shapepar{\circleshape}
هناك بعض الأشكال مسبقا في shapepar.sty (مربع، مستطيل، دائرة،
دائرة مع حفرة، والماس، والقلب، نجمة، ومسدس عرافة الجوز) التي تستخدم في
الأمثلة في التعليمات أدناه. يتم تخزين كل من هذه الأشكال في ماكرو،
 shapepar.sty (مربع، مستطيل، دائرة،
دائرة مع حفرة، والماس، والقلب، نجمة، ومسدس عرافة الجوز) التي تستخدم في
الأمثلة في التعليمات أدناه. يتم تخزين كل من هذه الأشكال في ماكرو،
وهناك أمر لاستخدام هذا الشكل.\par

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Linux Libertine O}
\shapepar{\heartshape}
There are some shapes predefined in shapepar.sty (square, rectangle, circle,
circle-with-hole, diamond, heart, star, hexagon and hex-nut) which are used as
examples in the instructions below. Each of these shapes is stored in a macro,
and there is a command to use that shape.\par

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX,Scale=4.1]{Arimo}
0.%
\multido{\rA=4.0+-0.2,\iB=1+1}{19}{\addfontfeatures{Scale=\rA}\iB}

\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX,Scale=1]{Latin Modern Roman}
\end{document}