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:
Setting well in strange shapes: http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/ShowcaseCircular.pdf
\length macro: http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/diminuendo.pdf
pdfTeX's superior justification algorithm. Particularly: protrusion, expansion, tracking, and kerning (microtype features, all but the first of which XeTeX cannot perform)
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.
ConTeXt
(which you've already mentioned) andLuaLaTeX
. Themicrotype
package supportsLuaLaTeX
nearly as completely as it doespdfLaTeX
.