Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 47 posts

Re: The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

#2

Post by eslaught »

The first thing I want to know about a typesetting system is: does it do microtype? And are there any innovations at that level? I don't see any mention of this in the "SILE vs TeX" section of the manual, but to me it seems like the most important thing I'd need to know up front. After all, if I'm not going to put in the effort to make a document look really good, why bother with a typesetting system at all?

Practically speaking, I think if they wanted users to adopt this, the best thing they could do would be to write an output format for Pandoc or similar. I could try this today if such a mode were available.

Re: The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

#4

Post by mixmastamyk »

eslaught wrote: post #2

The first thing I want to know about a typesetting system is: does it do microtype? And are there any innovations at that level? I don't see any mention of this in the "SILE vs TeX" section of the manual, but to me it seems like the most important thing I'd need to know up front. After all, if I'm not going to put in the effort to make a document look really good, why bother with a typesetting system at all? Practica…

What is microtype?

Re: The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

#5

Post by tofof »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #4
eslaught wrote: post #2

The first thing I want to know about a typesetting system is: does it do microtype? And are there any innovations at that level? I don't see any mention of this in the "SILE vs TeX" section of the manual, but to me it seems like the most important thing I'd need to know up front. After all, if I'm not going to put in the effort to make a document look really good, why bother with a typesetting system at all? Practica…

What is microtype?

I believe it's referring to small intercharacter typesetting details like tracking and kerning.

From the microtype package for latex:

"The microtype package provides a LaTeX interface to the micro-typographic extensions ... : most prominently, character protrusion and font expansion, furthermore the adjustment of interword spacing and additional kerning, as well as hyphenatable letterspacing (tracking) and the possibility to disable all or selected ligatures."

Re: The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

#6

Post by eslaught »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #4
eslaught wrote: post #2

The first thing I want to know about a typesetting system is: does it do microtype? And are there any innovations at that level? I don't see any mention of this in the "SILE vs TeX" section of the manual, but to me it seems like the most important thing I'd need to know up front. After all, if I'm not going to put in the effort to make a document look really good, why bother with a typesetting system at all? Practica…

What is microtype?

I'm using it as a shorthand for the features provided by LaTeX's microtype package, namely proper kerning, protrusion, and expansion:

https://ctan.org/pkg/microtype?lang=en

Re: The SILE Typesetter: Simon's Improved Layout Engine

#7

Post by stevemk14ebr »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #4
eslaught wrote: post #2

The first thing I want to know about a typesetting system is: does it do microtype? And are there any innovations at that level? I don't see any mention of this in the "SILE vs TeX" section of the manual, but to me it seems like the most important thing I'd need to know up front. After all, if I'm not going to put in the effort to make a document look really good, why bother with a typesetting system at all? Practica…

What is microtype?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtypography
Post reply on HN