8

what is actually better to use with LuaLaTex: Babel or Polyglossia?

I read everywhere that we should prefer Polyglossia over Babel when using LuaLaTex because LuaLaTex did not completely support Babel. But these statements i read are some years old and many things have changed. So the support for Babel is maybe better?

Therefore i want to know what package i should prefer and why? thanks!

Improve this question
10
  • It's difficult to evaluate your claims as you haven't provided traceable references. (Where is "everywhere"?) For at least the past two years, for sure, both babel and polyglossia -- the packages -- have worked well with LuaLaTeX. While both packages' language support is pretty good (not perfect, just good...) for the "large" Western and Central European languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian), I believe there are still important differences across packages in terms of quality of implementation for other European and for non-European languages.
    – Mico
    Apr 9, 2016 at 17:05
  • Which language, or languages, do you need support for?
    – Mico
    Apr 9, 2016 at 17:26
  • 2
    I won't say current babel is better than polyglossia (I'm biased) but certainly is better than versions of a couple of year ago. Some languages already define Unicode strings, and the core provides tools like reading on the fly of language.dat, as well as \babelpatterns to add/modify specific patterns. In a few months (before Summer, I hope), Unicode strings for all babel languages, will be provided, as well as some aditional tools.
    – Javier Bezos
    Apr 12, 2016 at 9:42
  • 1
    @EvanAad - Thanks. If I recall correctlty, ever since TeXLive2013 -- which as released officially about a month after the document you cited was published -- both babel and polyglossia have interacted just fine with Lua(La)TeX. Actually, I seem to recall that support for all kinds of LaTeX packages improved markedly around the time TeXLive2013 was released. This improvement may have been due more to some much-appreciated updates to the LaTeX kernel than to changes in the LuaTeX engine.
    – Mico
    Jun 6, 2017 at 13:32
  • 1
    @schtandard I changed the duplicate link to the newer one (by re-opening and closing) but then added also the link to the older question. (sorry that it stayed a while in the mod queue)
    – Stefan Kottwitz ♦
    Jan 6, 2020 at 1:50

0

Reset to default

Browse other questions tagged .