[Tex/LaTex] What packages should I load with LuaTex

fontspecluatexpackages

I'd like to create my first LaTeX document to make an article for my science teacher.

I've decided to do it using LuaLaTeX, the opentype font newpx and with microtype. I'd like to use both Spanish and English.

I have preselected several libraries I think are useful and modern.

I'd like to know your opinion,
Is there any incompatibility between my packages or something unnecessary?
Do you suggest to add any other?
Would you change any option?
I'm mostly concerned about fontspec, fontenc, luainputenc y luatextra. Some posts say some are not needed anymore, some say the opposite or are too old.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry} 
\usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage[utf8]{luainputenc}
\usepackage{luatextra}
\usepackage{newpxtext}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{amsmath, amsfonts, amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage[section]{placeins}
\usepackage[section]{chngcntr}
\counterwithin{figure}{chapter}
\usepackage[section]{cleveref}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{polyglossia}    
\setotherlanguage{english}
\setmainlanguage{spanish}
\usepackage[xindy={language=spanish, codepage=utf8}, style=altlist]{glossaries}   
\usepackage[xindy, splitindex]{imakeidx}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} 
\usepackage{microtype}

New version with your suggestions:

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry} 
\usepackage{mathtools, amsfonts, amssymb}
\usepackage[no-math]{fontspec}
\usepackage{newpxtext}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage[section]{placeins}
\usepackage[section]{chngcntr}
\counterwithin{figure}{chapter}
\usepackage[section]{cleveref}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{polyglossia}    
\setmainlanguage{spanish}
\setotherlanguage{english}
\usepackage[xindy={language=spanish, codepage=utf8}, style=altlist]{glossaries}   
\usepackage[xindy, splitindex]{imakeidx}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} 
\usepackage{microtype}

Best Answer

Some comments and suggestions:

Load amsmath (or mathtools) before fontspec (and unicode-math).
Don't load the fontenc, inputenc (or luainputenc) and textcomp packages.
The luatextra package appears to have been updated last in 2010. It simply loads the following 6 packages: fontspec, luatexbase, luacode, lualibs, metalogo, and fixltx2e.
- With a LaTeX format more recent that 2015/01/01, fixltx2e does nothing at all, as all of the package's various fixes have been incorporated into the LaTeX kernel code.
- The luatexbase package is, these days, also loaded automatically if you run LuaLaTeX. No need to load it again.
- In short, don't load the luatextra package. Load the luacode, lualibs, and/or metalogo packages only if you really need them.
The newtxtext, newtxmath, newpxtext and newpxmath packages all interact very well with fontspec. If you load these packages, there's probably no need to load unicode-math.
Don't load any packages more than once. (I believe this is sound advice for pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX users as well...)
With Spanish and English, both babel and polyglossia work very well under LuaLaTeX. Just use the package whose syntax and options you find more straightforward to master.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] What packages do people load by default in LaTeX

I almost always load microtype. It plays with ever-so-slightly shrinking and stretching of the fonts and with the extent to which text protrudes into the margins in a way that yields results that look better, that have fewer instances of hyphenation, and fewer overfull hboxes. It doesn't work with latex, you have to use pdflatex instead. It also works with lualatex and (protrusion only) with xelatex.

[Tex/LaTex] Which Lua environment should I use with LuaTeX (LuaLaTeX)

There are two questions here. You should consider asking one question at a time for your next posts.

Now to the Lua code environment. Don't use any of them if you can. Just do

\directlua{  require("myfile")  }

and put all of your Lua code in that file. See another answer for a list of directories TeX searches for the file myfile.lua.

If for some reason you can't do that (when you are only allowed to ship only one file for example) you should use the environment luacode* (with *) from the luacode package. That has the safest character catcodes. That means you can say something like:

\begin{luacode*}
texio.write_nl("This is a string with\n a newline in it")
tex.print(-2, string.format( "5 %% 4 is %d ", 5 % 4))
\end{luacode*}

(You need the -2 as the first argument to tex.sprint(), because the % sign (resulting from the double %% is interpreted from TeX as a comment sign after the environment closes. TeX sees at the end of the environment 5 % 4 is 1 and treats the % as the end of input. So you need to tell TeX that this % is a regular character. You have two choices: either pass TeX a string like this: string.format("5 \\%% 4 is ...") so that TeX sees 5 \% 4 is ... as you would do with normal text or make % a normal letter, so TeX does not recognize it as a comment sign. To do that you have to change the category code. The easiest way is to assign the special catcode table -2 to tex.print(). It is a safe catcode table, no characters have a special meaning.)

If you need to use TeX macros in Lua code, use the luacode environment (without *):

\begin{luacode}
    local current_page = tonumber(\thepage)
    texio.write_nl("We are on page " .. current_page)
\end{luacode}

And if you need to put your code in a command, use \luaexec:

\newcommand\myrepeat[2]{%
\luaexec{
  for i=1,#1 do
     tex.sprint("\luatexluaescapestring{#2}")
   end
 }}

\myrepeat{4}{Hello world}

(you can't use the environments directly in a \newcommand, but you could use \luacodestar ... \endluacodestar if you really want the environment functionality). The \luatexluaescapestring{} is necessary to escape input characters like " that would be harmful to the Lua string.

You have also asked if there is a shortcut such as the $...$ for math typesetting. No, there is none. IMO that is not such a big problem, as Lua code (in practice, but YMMV) is only used at a few points (with macros or with environments for example) and not so much in running text. Mostly in packages. (See the documentation to the luacolor package for example. Even if you don't understand the package in full detail at the first glance, you can see where the TeX code is with the \directlua calls, aliased in the example to \LuaCol@directlua and how the Lua code is separated from it in another file. See that there are only very few lines of Lua code inside the \LuaCol@directlua commands? In my opinion we can learn a lot from this code, as Heiko Oberdiek is an excellent package writer.)

Now to your second question about Saving variables. If you don't declare your variables local, they are accessible in all Lua chunks. But you are asking to pass Lua code to TeX. You can do this for example:

\begin{luacode*}
tex.sprint("\setcounter{mycounter}{" .. my_lua_value .. "}")
\end{luacode*}

to create a \setcounter command with your value. Or you can use the tex.count Lua interface:

\begin{luacode*}
tex.count[10] = my_lua_value
\end{luacode*}

and your value is in \count10. But this is a bit dangerous as you have to be certain to use a free counter.

Best Answer

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