On 4/5/07, Sanjoy Mahajan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What does this exactly mean (from wikipedia)? > > "XeTeX works well with both LaTeX and ConTeXt." > > XeTeX, PDFTeX, eTeX, and TeX (Knuth's original TeX) are conceptually > at the same level. The ConTeXt documents (and kpathsea) call this > level the engine. They all understand basically the same macro > language, the one Knuth described in the _TeXBook_. > > But they have slight differences. For example, TeX produces DVI > output. eTeX does too but it adds a few more commands ('primitives') > to the macro language. PDFTeX produces PDF directly (or can produce > DVI) and has, relative to regular TeX, new macro commands to support > features of PDF; for example, \pdfpagewidth is new to PDFTeX. Regular > TeX doesn't have an equivalent because the DVI format does not include > a notion of page size. PDFTeX, from v1.40, also incorporates those > eTeX commands. And XeTeX has commands to support OpenType, which is > the new standard font format. > > LaTeX and ConTeXt are large programs ('macro packages') written on top > of the engine. Namely, the program -- whether LaTeX or ConTeXt -- is > written in the macro language of the engine. Most of the program is > independent of the engine, but there are a few changes needed; the > program usually detects which engine is being used underneath it and > adjusts what it does accordingly. > > For LaTeX, you choose the engine by the name of the program you run: > > * latex -- uses regular TeX (actually, now it uses PDFTeX pretending > to be regular TeX) > * pdflatex -- uses PDFTeX > * xelatex -- uses XeTeX > > For ConTeXt, you choose the engine by the '--engine' option to > texexec. For example: "texexec --engine=pdftex file.tex" will make > you file.pdf. But as the manual entry now says, you usually do not > need to specify the engine: > > --engine=texengine > Specify the program to do the hard work of typesetting. > Currently either pdftex (the default), xetex, or aleph. > The luatex value is experimental. The --engine option > is not usually needed. Instead, let texexec figure out > the setting based on other command-line information. > See for example the --xetex or --pdf switches. > > So > * "texexec --xetex file.tex" : uses XeTeX > * "texexec --pdf file.tex" : uses PDFTeX > * "texexec file.tex" : also uses PDFTeX (the --pdf option is > now the default to texexec) > > I hope this explanation clarifies. If so, you can Wikify (on > wikipedia and/or the ConTeXt wiki)! > > -Sanjoy About luatex: see it as a new entry in the list XeTeX, PDFTeX, eTeX, and TeX ie luatex ,XeTeX, PDFTeX, eTeX, and TeX
luatex add a script language (lua) to tex . Note that PDFTeX> eTeX> TeX (where 'A>B' means A include B) and that luatex > PDFTeX U Aleph. There is a bit of confusion about luatex: someone says "luatex will be pdftex2.0", someother says "pdftex will be frozen to 1.5 and there will be luatex". Given that I played with luatex, I prefer the second, or even "luatex will be pdftex4.0" luigi luigi _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context