Re: LaTeX export: when is it more useful to use LuaTeX instead of pdfTeX?

[Tim Cross]

Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> writes:

> On 09/07/2022 01:49, Thomas S. Dye wrote:
>> Juan Manuel Macías writes:
>> 
>>> TL;DR: A list of use cases where using LuaTeX is more advantageous than
>>> using pdfTeX
>> I forgot to ask earlier.  Is Lua support in Babel potentially useful?  The 
>> current
>> implementation doesn't work too well.
>
> In the context of LaTeX your question is rather ambiguous.
>
> - I have never tried lua interpreter as the handler of source blocks in Org 
> (org-babel).
> - If you mean LuaLaTeX as the engine for "#+begin_src: latex" blocks then some
>   incompatibilities may arise due to font selection. PdfLaTeX and LuaLaTeX 
> needs different
>   code in preamble to specify encoding and fonts. With LuaTeX you get more 
> convenient OTF
>   and TTF font selection, but you you have to pay for the feature. It is 
> necessary to
>   explicitly specify all families: normal, typewriter, italics, etc if you 
> need Unicode.
> - There is babel LaTeX package. A decade ago polyglossia was a replacement of 
> babel for
>   XeTeX and LuaTex, but currently babel is recommended for these LaTeX 
> engines as
>   well. Sorry, if this statement is not precise enough.

Actually, that is a good point.

Juan, I think it would be great to add your post to worg. I'm happy to
do this, but I think it wold also be good if we could include a basic
'setup' i.e. what changes people might need to (or should do to maximise
benefit) in order to try out luatex. For example, what settings to put
in org-latex-pdf-process (I'm guessing something like "lualatex
-interaction nonstopmode -output-directory %o %f") and what (if any)
packages to add/remove from the org-latex-packages-alist etc (I'm
guessing that perhaps some font related packages may need tweaking?).

Ideally, what would be good is a very simple recipe for what someone
should do in order to try out luatex and get the most out of it (or at
least see potential).