Q&A highlight
Posted14 days ago
Key Takeaways
> The default LATEX compiler in both cases will likely be pdfLaTeX, and to make things smooth, we will stick with that. However, note that there are the more powerful XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX, which can be a suitable choice for advanced users.
> XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX As a remark, if the document will be mainly in Chinese/Japanese/Korean or any other non-Latin language in general, then it may be more beneficial to just switch to the XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX compiler since they directly support UTF-8 encoded text. However, we will keep ourselves to the default pdfLaTeX compiler to avoid complications.
This is just FUD. XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX do not introduce any "complications" and are not only for "advanced users". Switching is easy, and programs without full UTF-8 support should simply not be used these days.
Well, there are still some packages that work flawlessly with pdfLaTeX, but not completely with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX --- microtype is the canonical example.
(I use tectonic now but had been using XeLaTeX for more than a decade before.)
The positioning of the table on page 12 is completely inline with how tables/figures are placed in books and academic figures. The rule is that all displayed tables/figures should either be placed at the top or bottom of a page. Ideally, they should be placed on the same page as they are first mentioned in the text, but if this is not possible, it is acceptable to push them to subsequent pages.
Interestingly, the author did manually specify `[ht!]` options for the table, and not for some other tables further in the chapter.
I agree that LuaLaTeX is the only sensible recommendation for beginners, and is actually easier to use in most cases, but there can occasionally be some complications with old packages/classes/preambles that were written with pdfLaTeX (or even classical DVI LaTeX) in mind. This is fairly rare, and usually means that the package/preamble is just broken, but hearing that isn't very useful for users who just want to fix their broken documents.
:)
Maybe it's better to include them in the repository itself.
Not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator. We simply enrich the public API with analytics.