A few questions about Lout

[Mats Broberg]

Dear listmembers,

I am looking around for a suitable software for my publications
projects. Seeing that they may include alot of footnotes, margin notes,
crossreferences etc, I have more or less ruled out QuarkXPress,
InDesign, and Framemaker. 

So far, I have been looking at LaTeX and ConTeXt. Both seem promising,
in different ways.

However, being a non-programmer, Lout's syntax seems alot easier for me
to grasp than the syntax of TeX & Children.

Anyway, I have a few questions about Lout. Forgive if the answers to
some of them are in the manuals, which I indeed have browsed but not
read every word of.

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1: Font installation in TeX & Children deterred me ALOT. To install a
complete font with small caps, old style figures, alternate characters
etc one needs to write a fontinst file, comprising a couple of hundred
lines of code. Not good for us mere mortals! I get the impression that
this is considerably more easy in Lout? Correct?

2: Is hanging punctuation (= commas, periods, colons, semicolons,
quotation marks and hyphens protruding slightly into the margin)
possible to achieve in Lout?

3: Is it possible to have multiple series of footnotes and margin notes,
separated with definable rules and vertical spaces? E.g. something like
this:

Main text main text main tex main text @FootNoteSeriesA { A foot note in
series A. } Main text main text main tex main text @FootNoteSeriesB { A
footnote in series B } Main text main text main tex main text. Main text
main text main tex main text.

4: If it turns out the last line of a paragraph has only one or two
words, is it possible to slightly, slightly tighten the paragraph so
that the short line moves back to the preceding line? Can this be
automated (for long documents)?

5: I seem to remember from browsing the archive that someone asked about
line numbering and got the answer that this is not possible in Lout?

6: Is it possible to typeset on a grid in Lout? E.g. if there is a
figure at the top of the page, make sure that the following main text
starts at a multiple of the line spacing used, so that lines on both
sides of the paper line up when you hold up the sheet?

7: At GNU, it says that Lout does "optimal paragraph and page breaking".
AFAIK, TeX & Children only do optimal paragraph breaking. In what way
does Lout improve the page breaking?

8: How about letterspacing? Is it possible to letterspace e.g. small
caps or caps?

================================================================

I think that's all for now. Many thanks in advance for your answers.

Best regards,
Mats Broberg