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

[Max Nikulin]

On 10/07/2022 03:22, Juan Manuel Macías wrote:
> LuaTeX and XeTeX are
> digital typesetting systems. They are not word processors.

I have skimmed through the discussion happened exactly a year ago
https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/scuirf$m7o$1@ciao.gmane.io/
and I should repeat that you are too much concentrated on books and 
carefully designed camera-ready files.

LaTeX is a kind of word processor as well in the sense that it is used 
for notes that are not intended to be published. In some cases it is 
merely a tool to make readable a text heavy loaded with math. Balance of 
efforts and quality is quite different. As much as possible should be 
delegated to "word processor". Forcing users to select particular fonts 
makes documents less portable, it increases a chance that a colleague 
does not have a font installed on your machine or you get a file 
requiring a proprietary font you do not have.

For such quick notes the feature currently provided by browser, office, 
etc. is indispensable: list of implicit fallbacks to find some available 
font having glyphs missed in the primary fonts.

I do not mind that LuaLaTeX alleviated issues with configuring of fonts, 
so it is more convenient for books or decorated documents. Personally I 
was quite happy with PdfLaTeX fonts I get out of the box without 
necessity to override ≥ 6 font families. I did not use hieroglyphs or 
fancy Unicode characters, but with LuaLaTeX they anyway require setting 
of additional fonts. My current impression is that LuaLaTeX may be 
significant step forward for publishers, but for quick notes it is a 
kind of trade-off.