* Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV @ 2011-03-14 17:22 Cecil Westerhof 2011-03-14 18:13 ` Marco 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Cecil Westerhof @ 2011-03-14 17:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users [-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 158 bytes --] When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand that you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? -- Cecil Westerhof [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 183 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 486 bytes --] ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 17:22 Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV Cecil Westerhof @ 2011-03-14 18:13 ` Marco 2011-03-14 18:26 ` Cecil Westerhof 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Marco @ 2011-03-14 18:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ntg-context On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof <cldwesterhof@gmail.com> wrote: > When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand that > you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex. You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX backends (pdftex, xetex, luatex). Marco ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 18:13 ` Marco @ 2011-03-14 18:26 ` Cecil Westerhof 2011-03-14 18:44 ` Marco 2011-03-14 18:52 ` Hans Hagen 0 siblings, 2 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Cecil Westerhof @ 2011-03-14 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users [-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 615 bytes --] 2011/3/14 Marco <netuse@lavabit.com> > On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof <cldwesterhof@gmail.com> wrote: > > > When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand that > > you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? > > MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare > advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex. > > You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX backends > (pdftex, xetex, luatex). > And where do I find the advantages/disadvantages? Or can I just always use MKIV? -- Cecil Westerhof [-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 952 bytes --] [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 486 bytes --] ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 18:26 ` Cecil Westerhof @ 2011-03-14 18:44 ` Marco 2011-03-14 19:31 ` Mojca Miklavec 2011-03-14 18:52 ` Hans Hagen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Marco @ 2011-03-14 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ntg-context On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof <cldwesterhof@gmail.com> wrote: > 2011/3/14 Marco <netuse@lavabit.com> > > > On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof <cldwesterhof@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand > > > that you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? > > > > MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare > > advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex. > > > > You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX > > backends (pdftex, xetex, luatex). > > > > And where do I find the advantages/disadvantages? Wikipedia, google, information source of your slightest distrust. Short and incomplete: pdftex: + protrusion, font expansion - fonts are a nightmare xetex: + system fonts are easily accessible - no protrusion, no font expansion luatex: + protrusion, font expansion, easy access of system fonts, scripting language included, fast with mplib - in general much slower > Or can I just always use MKIV? Yes, you can. Marco ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 18:44 ` Marco @ 2011-03-14 19:31 ` Mojca Miklavec 2011-03-14 21:49 ` Marco 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Mojca Miklavec @ 2011-03-14 19:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users; +Cc: Marco On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 19:44, Marco wrote: > On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof wrote: >> 2011/3/14 Marco wrote: >> > On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof wrote: >> > >> > > When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand >> > > that you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? They are mostly relicts of the past which still happen to be supported. (But if ConTeXt was written from scratch, there would probably be no support for them.) I often write mathematical-oriented papers that need zero tweaking with OpenType fonts, complex layouts or that could benefit from lua scripting. I compile those randomly with MKII and MKIV, if nothing else to check for differences, or if there is a problem in MKIV, I can always use MKII is a fallback. MKII hardly ever changes, so it is slightly more reliable in some cases, but it is very limited in comparison to MKIV. I use XeTeX mostly when I need OpenType fonts and something in MKIV breaks. XeTeX has some advantages in out-of-the-box support for exotic scripts (which I don't use), but many of its features are not supported in ConTeXt at the high-level user interface. In general, XeTeX is the least supported engine in ConTeXt community. In contrary, for LaTeX users XeTeX is becoming the mainstream engine to use (best supported by active developers). >> > MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare >> > advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex. >> > >> > You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX >> > backends (pdftex, xetex, luatex). >> > >> >> And where do I find the advantages/disadvantages? > > Wikipedia, google, information source of your slightest distrust. > Short and incomplete: > > pdftex: > + protrusion, font expansion > - fonts are a nightmare (you should have put three minuses there :) + stability > xetex: > + system fonts are easily accessible > - no protrusion, no font expansion I never tried to use them, but I thought that Han The Thanh [please add the accents] added that to XeTeX semi-recently (http://scripts.sil.org/svn-view/xetex/TRUNK/, the last comment 8 months ago: "merged microtype branch to trunk"). > luatex: > + protrusion, font expansion, easy access of system fonts, scripting language > included, fast with mplib > - in general much slower ... depending on whether "in general" includes metapost or not. A speed factor of ten (faster) is nothing unusual for luatex when many metapost graphics come into play. ++ better support >> Or can I just always use MKIV? > > Yes, you can. Definitely. You don't need to bother, just stick to MKIV as long as it works fine for you. Mojca ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 19:31 ` Mojca Miklavec @ 2011-03-14 21:49 ` Marco 2011-03-18 2:54 ` mathew 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Marco @ 2011-03-14 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: ntg-context On 2011-03-14 Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote: > > xetex: > > + system fonts are easily accessible > > - no protrusion, no font expansion > > I never tried to use them, but I thought that Han The Thanh [please > add the accents] added that to XeTeX semi-recently > (http://scripts.sil.org/svn-view/xetex/TRUNK/, the last comment 8 > months ago: "merged microtype branch to trunk"). I don't follow xetex development any more, so my information was outdated. Thanks for the correction. > > luatex: > > + protrusion, font expansion, easy access of system fonts, scripting > > language included, fast with mplib > > - in general much slower > > ... depending on whether "in general" includes metapost or not. A > speed factor of ten (faster) is nothing unusual for luatex when many > metapost graphics come into play. I totally agree. But Cecil mentioned in another thread: »My document is mostly text.« Even if a few mp graphics are involved luatex is still noticeably slower. Marco ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 21:49 ` Marco @ 2011-03-18 2:54 ` mathew 2011-03-18 10:02 ` Hans Hagen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: mathew @ 2011-03-18 2:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users On Mar 14, 2011, at 16:49, Marco wrote: > I totally agree. But Cecil mentioned in another thread: »My document is mostly > text.« Even if a few mp graphics are involved luatex is still noticeably > slower. I look at it from the perspective that the last time I used TeX, my 8MHz Atari ST took several seconds to process each page. And then it took several seconds per page for the previewer to show me the DVI. And I couldn't do anything else on the machine while it was working. My way of working now is that I keep a short scratchpad document in TeXworks, and use it to sort out my formatting and macros, taking advantage of the live preview. When I'm done, I copy the definitions into my actual working document, which I edit in vim. I only typeset the entire working document once or twice an hour, if that; vim catches syntax errors. So if LuaTex takes a few seconds longer to do the typesetting, it's completely unimportant. mathew ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-18 2:54 ` mathew @ 2011-03-18 10:02 ` Hans Hagen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Hans Hagen @ 2011-03-18 10:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users On 18-3-2011 3:54, mathew wrote: > On Mar 14, 2011, at 16:49, Marco wrote: >> I totally agree. But Cecil mentioned in another thread: »My document is mostly >> text.« Even if a few mp graphics are involved luatex is still noticeably >> slower. > > I look at it from the perspective that the last time I used TeX, my 8MHz Atari ST took several seconds to process each page. And then it took several seconds per page for the previewer to show me the DVI. And I couldn't do anything else on the machine while it was working. > > My way of working now is that I keep a short scratchpad document in TeXworks, and use it to sort out my formatting and macros, taking advantage of the live preview. When I'm done, I copy the definitions into my actual working document, which I edit in vim. I only typeset the entire working document once or twice an hour, if that; vim catches syntax errors. So if LuaTex takes a few seconds longer to do the typesetting, it's completely unimportant. it's no problem to get a 250 pages per second throughput in mkiv but as soon as you add more interesting things to a page work needs to be done and that takes runtime on the average i get some 10-15 pages per second for documents of normal complexity on my (by now) 5 year old laptop that i use for development which is quite ok (mk.pdf: 10 pps, hybrid.pdf: 11 pps, cld-mkiv: 15 pps) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV 2011-03-14 18:26 ` Cecil Westerhof 2011-03-14 18:44 ` Marco @ 2011-03-14 18:52 ` Hans Hagen 1 sibling, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Hans Hagen @ 2011-03-14 18:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users On 14-3-2011 7:26, Cecil Westerhof wrote: > 2011/3/14 Marco<netuse@lavabit.com> > >> On 2011-03-14 Cecil Westerhof<cldwesterhof@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> When installing minimals you have MKII, XeTeX and MKIV. I understand that >>> you should normally use MKIV, but when are the other two used? >> >> MKII can be used either with pdftex or xetex (as you wish, compare >> advantages/disadvantages). MKIV can only be used with luatex. >> >> You have to differ between ConTeXt »versions« (mkii, mkiv) and TeX backends >> (pdftex, xetex, luatex). >> > > And where do I find the advantages/disadvantages? Or can I just always use > MKIV? As already mentioned speed depends on the kind of document. In general context runs slower with xetex and luatex if only because these are unicode engines while pdftex is 8 bit. Occasionally i do speed tests and it also depends on the operating system, file caching etc. For luatex the size of the cpu cache also matters. Although pdftex/mkiv is always faster unless on eused metapoist in which case mkiv is a clear winner (the metafun manual runs in tens of seconds in mkiv but takes many minutes in mkii. Comparing xetex/mkii and luatex/mkiv is difficult as xetex also pipes its output to a dvi backend. On some tests mkiv is faster, on some others mkii but I must admit that i only tested simple document. On a raw simple document, pdftex can be twice as fast as xetex or luatex. The more lua driven features are used, the slower mkiv becomes but in general it does a better job then. Anyhow .. only luatex/mkiv will evolve so best stick to that. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2011-03-18 10:02 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 9+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2011-03-14 17:22 Difference between MKII, XeTeX and MKIV Cecil Westerhof 2011-03-14 18:13 ` Marco 2011-03-14 18:26 ` Cecil Westerhof 2011-03-14 18:44 ` Marco 2011-03-14 19:31 ` Mojca Miklavec 2011-03-14 21:49 ` Marco 2011-03-18 2:54 ` mathew 2011-03-18 10:02 ` Hans Hagen 2011-03-14 18:52 ` Hans Hagen
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