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Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:43:32 -0400
Message-ID: <BANLkTikoagmZ41qpH8Zqf5xw_btH1iP7Vg@mail.gmail.com>
From: Michael Kerpan <mjkerpan@kerpan.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] [RFC] fonts and unicode/utf [TeX]
Topicbox-Message-UUID: f5dbe424-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

Modern TeX implementations like XeTeX and LuaTeX handle UTF-8 natively
and also bring all sorts of benefits like OpenType support (automagic
ligatures, real small caps, selectable lining or old-style figures and
more) and the ability to define fonts from the system font pool rather
than using archaic incantations and magic scrolls from the early 90s.
The problem is that these modern implementations are HUGE. On the
average Linux system, TeX, LaTeX and other paraphernalia seem to take
up well over 1 GB these days. I've given up on TeX because it's just
so darn big.

There is, however, hope. Heirloom troff manages to include many of the
same whizz-bang typographic features as XeTeX and friends (including
Unicode support, smartfont support, easy loading of fonts in modern
formats) while taking up about 1/100th the resource footprint. Clearly
what we REALLY need is a filter that takes LaTeX sources and processes
them into TROFF commands to feed to a port of Heirloom troff ;)

Mike