LyX ⇒ LyX and OpenType fonts / microtypography / some issues

[MarcAurel]

I have recently completed a book. However, right now I am kind of between skylla and charybdis.

I can only see two options and none are entirely fulfilling.


1) Use LyX / pdflatex to get great pdf output (thanks to the microtype package)

Downside:
no ligatures (in Palatino, can't see why to be honest)
can't use the OpenType font I would have wanted to use for the main text
get only straight quotes for whatever reason (how can I get smart quotes?)


2) Use Xetex to use the fonts I want to use, including ligatures etc

Downside:
some issues with smart quotes (should be able to fix those, though
Ugly pdf output. After having seen the output of /microtype in LyX I won't settle for that


Thus, I am wondering whether there is either a third option I am unaware of that would allow me to:
- use microtype for great output
- use the Opentype font I want
- have smart quotes and ligatures

Or is there a way to either use microtype with Xetex, or add an opentype font to LyX without using Xetex.

I am honestly stumped. Right now I am willing to settle for just using pdflatex and Palatino, but on the other hand the output with the OpenType font in Xetex looks really beautiful (minus the missing microtype features, though).

Can anybody help me? I'd really appreciate it.

[meho_r]

1) Use LyX / pdflatex to get great pdf output (thanks to the microtype package)

Downside:
no ligatures (in Palatino, can't see why to be honest)
can't use the OpenType font I would have wanted to use for the main text
get only straight quotes for whatever reason (how can I get smart quotes?)

About ligatures and Palatino, it is simply designed that way.

As for quotes, you must decide which ones you're going to use before entering (notice, entering, not importing) the text. There an option in Options > Language > Quote Style. For imported text, I still haven't find a way to convert plain quotes to "real" ones. And what is worse, it seems that even "Search-Replace" doesn't work for quotes in LyX :/ So, it seems you'll have to manually correct them.

2) Use Xetex to use the fonts I want to use, including ligatures etc

Downside:
some issues with smart quotes (should be able to fix those, though
Ugly pdf output. After having seen the output of /microtype in LyX I won't settle for that

I wouldn't call it ugly. Microtype is optional and not every typesetter use it (even famous Bringhurst's "Elements of typographic style" is typeset without it). It does improve hyphenation, but it's not that big deal IMHO.

Thus, I am wondering whether there is either a third option I am unaware of that would allow me to:
- use microtype for great output
- use the Opentype font I want
- have smart quotes and ligatures

Or is there a way to either use microtype with Xetex, or add an opentype font to LyX without using Xetex.

I am honestly stumped. Right now I am willing to settle for just using pdflatex and Palatino, but on the other hand the output with the OpenType font in Xetex looks really beautiful (minus the missing microtype features, though).

Can anybody help me? I'd really appreciate it.

Simply put, microtype package cannot be used with Xe(La)TeX at the moment (and, unfortunately, it is not clear if this will be solved in the future). If ligatures are so important to you, maybe use another font, e.g., fourier. And, for quotes, as I said, you can have them in LyX if you are entering text, but doesn't work for imported text AFAIK.

[MarcAurel]

The smart quotes problem is solved. I think there were quite a few problems since updating to the latest Mac OSX version. Xetex did not quite work as before. Before the update I could just select the font and everything worked. This time I had to fiddle around a bit but I finally figured it out:

\defaultfontfeatures{Scale=MatchLowercase,Mapping=tex-text}

Thanks to your reply at:
http://www.latex-community.org/forum/vi ... 1398#p5213

Now I get ligatures, quotes, m-dashed etc. It's just great. I think I'll stick with Xetex because the lack of microtype is not that bad after all. There were a few issues with words that stuck out but those (very few) instances were easily fixed by either setting an hyphenation point or rephrasing.

However, I do find it odd that without the defaultfontfeatures command and even after setting the quotes style to ".." and typing them manually, I still get in the output (not on the screen!): ``...'' It's really odd.

[meho_r]

There is one more issue with Xe(La)TeX: it's much slower than LaTeX (in some cases even 2 to 3 times slower). So, when you work with a large document and compile often it is really painful.

[MarcAurel]

There is one more issue with Xe(La)TeX: it's much slower than LaTeX (in some cases even 2 to 3 times slower). So, when you work with a large document and compile often it is really painful.

Well, as long as I can't work with OpenType fonts in Latex I see no other solution. The document I am currently working with is around 200 pages and luckily generating the output is not unbearably slow. I do agree, though, that it's much faster without using Xetex.

[chocochoco]

thank you soooo much. I worked on this for hours, trying to get csquote to work this and that. so easy, so simple. I just didn't expect the problem to be here. g'dang