On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:57:13 +0200 luigi.scarso at gmail.com (luigi
scarso) wrote:
On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 9:48 AM Sergio Callegari <sergio.callegari at
unibo.it>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have noticed that luatex now supports variable fonts and I've started
> experimenting. I am asking a question here but I am unsure if it is
> actually tied to luatex or luaotfload or maybe fontspec. In case, please
> be so kind to address me to the correct forum.
>
>
hm, luatex and luahbtex don't support variable fonts directly,
it's a matter of the format (latex, context, optex... ) .
Thanks for providing this info. Can you be so kind to expand a little,
as there are still a couple of things that are not 100% clear to me?
- Common widom found on the net is that variable fonts work only with
the LuaTeX engine, no others and that this become possible only with
LuaTex 1.13. As a matter of fact, xeTeX works without an hiccup on the
file, but after it it is impossible to make a PDF because dvipdfmx
reports "invalid font" . This suggests that the engine and specific the
part of it responsible for the PDF generation plays a role. The only
item that comes to my mind given the situation is lua. If so, would it
be luaotfload the upstream to ask the question to?
- The errors reported when attempting to use variable fonts appear to
happen /after/ the format and the tex machinery has completed its work,
that is after the:
406 words of node memory still in use:
3 hlist, 1 vlist, 1 rule, 2 glue, 3 kern, 1 glyph, 4 attribute, 48
glue_spec
, 4 attribute_list, 1 write nodes
avail lists: 2:17,3:4,4:1,5:28,6:2,7:116,9:14
What appears to fail is the step following this one, that is the PDF
generation. This looks consistent with what happens in xetex. But if I
am correct, in both pdftex and luatex the pdf generation is unseparable
from the engine, apart from the role of luaotfload...
Any suggestion?
Sergio
