[NTG-context] Recapitulating

[Hans Hagen]

Pepe Barbe wrote:
> After jumping through hoops, with some help I managed to get XeTeX
> running and using TTF fonts directly with pdfTeX.
>
> But before I go any further I would like to know what is your opinion
> in using one or the other. When researching a bit on XeTeX I read
> there were several caveates vs. using pdfTeX with LaTeX.
>
> Is this the same? In ConTeXt. What can I expect to work and what not?
> If TTF can be used with pdfTeX (with some effort) what is the
> advantage of using XeTeX with ConTeXt?
>   
by the end of the year / begin next year, pdftex will support open type
natively 

xetex uses libraries and hooks into platform font support; pdftex will stay independent of libraries and focus on extendibility and configurability (think of scripts that demand complex solutions and different ones as well, like arab); of course the question is if in the end it makes much difference for the average user 

concerning context and these two ... we may end up with a common core and different subsystems and levels of support; graphics for instance can be dealt with in a way hidden from the user, as can input encodings; fonts and font features may differ but i'll try to offer a kind of generic interface to for instance open type features since the definition and control of fonts will differ per engine

of course it also depends on what i use (most) and what users demand -) 

Hans  
 

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