How to I use the microtype packlage in Quarto?

[e05bf027]

Please help me configure the microtype package in the YAML header

I am writing a thesis, and really find Quarto to be great. I am getting to the point where I am fine-tuning the typesetting. The microtype package for Latex is what I am interested in integrating properly. I know that Quarto has an option in the YAML header called microtypeoptions. I don't actually know literally what to write here to feed the instructions to the package.

I often find this with the YAML stuff; the documentation on the Quarto site doesn't make clear what I literally need to write to configure the commands correctly. In most cases I can figure it out but this one has stumped me. If anyone could advise I'd me most grateful.

I have tried putting options separated by commas, with and without quotation marks, inside square brackets or not, and have added `/usepackage{microtype}' to the relevant part of the YAML in case it needed it. I am unsure why I can't get this.

I am running Quarto through Rstudio version 2023.06.0+421 on a M1 Macbook Air, with Tinytex installed

[cderv]

microtypeoptions field in YAML will be passed to LaTeX template. This is a pandoc feature that still apply in Quarto as the default LaTeX template has theses line

quarto-cli/src/resources/formats/pdf/pandoc/template.tex

Lines 192 to 195 in d4f620e

	\IfFileExists{microtype.sty}{% use microtype if available
	\usepackage[$for(microtypeoptions)$$microtypeoptions$$sep$,$endfor$]{microtype}
	\UseMicrotypeSet[protrusion]{basicmath} % disable protrusion for tt fonts
	}{}

It means that if microtype is installed on the LaTeX installation, it will be used , and if microtypeoptions is set then it will be passed as options.

Did you look into your produced .tex file ? Is microtype loaded in the file ? Are options passed ?

I would suggest to look into the .tex file that you produce by rendering Quarto document and check what is inside.

It is possible that everything is inserted as it should but this is not working as you expect for some reason (LaTeX conflict ?)

[mcanouil]

keep-tex: true in your YAML front matter to check what’s inside the tex file.

[mcanouil]

The microtypeoptions is to be defined as follow¹:

microtypeoptions:
  - protrusion=true
  - verbose=true

Footnotes

1. See https://ctan.tetaneutral.net/macros/latex/contrib/microtype/microtype.pdf. Also note that all options are not available to all PDF engines, i.e., some only works for pdflatex for example. ↩

[e05bf027]

This is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you