XeTeX (Modern TeX) Disappoints
Published at 15:27 on 21 October 2023
I held considerable hope for XeTeX (the modern-day TeX). Alas, while arguably better than Groff, it still leaves a lot to be desired in the font department.
Namely, while it can indeed load and use the same standard system fonts that all other programs can (a big win over classic TeX), its support for OpenType font features is quite limited and lacking. For instance, small capitals don’t work. I have tried to use them multiple ways, including directly via RawFeature=+smcp, and either nothing happens and I get normal mixed case, or I get a complaint that Font shape `TU/Baskerville(0)/m/sc' undefined and again I get normal mixed case.
I know the smcp (i.e. set lowercase input in small caps) feature is present in the font I am using, because I can use it from Libre Office. Apparently, XeTeX just doesn’t get enough use for this sort of thing to get adequately exercised. At this stage, I’m getting to the point of writing the TeX family of text formatters off as hopelessly yesteryear.
The feature works in some other fonts I have installed, so apparently it’s a bug that only affects certain cases. Unfortunately, one of those cases is in the font I most wish to use for this project.
And yes, I know I could extract the small caps myself and create an .otf file whose lowercase is small caps, and load that font. Well, eff that. Not having to do such awkward hackery was my whole motive for installing XeTeX in the first place. If you say your tool supports standard font files, it should support the standard features in those files directly.
It’s a disappointment, as the well-documented plain-text input of formatters like Groff and LaTeX make them quite useful for formatting automatically-generated output. Modern font support has long been, and apparently continues to be, their Achilles’ heel.