Using microtype for hanging punctuation with the xelatex engine

[lokesh-krishna]

Description

I would like to enable hanging punctuations in my document while using the default pdf-engine (xelatex). The following is my reprex:

---
title: Microtype example
format:
  pdf:
    microtypeoptions:
      - protrusion=true
---

"This is a really long piece of text that I'm using to check if microtype is enabled successfully or not for hanging punctuations, which is all that I'm interested in presently. Hopefully it does!"

I checked the tex file and confirmed that the option is passed:

\IfFileExists{microtype.sty}{% use microtype if available
  \usepackage[protrusion=true]{microtype}
  \UseMicrotypeSet[protrusion]{basicmath} % disable protrusion for tt fonts
}{}

Here is what this looks like when rendered:

My understanding of hanging puncutation/protrusion is that the opening quotes should be protruded into the margin if I have it enabled.

What am I missing here?

[mcanouil]

Your question is about LaTeX not Quarto.
You'll have better chances to ask on a LaTeX forum as you've established the LaTeX file produced is correct.

[cscheid]

I think this option doesn't do what you want it to, or the microtype package doesn't know how to fix overhang of quotes. This confirms @mcanouil's hunch that it's not a Quarto problem:

$ cat test.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[protrusion=true]{microtype}

\title{Hello, world}
\author{}
\date{}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\noindent ``This is a really long piece of text that I'm using to check if
microtype is enabled successfully or not for hanging punctuations, which
is all that I'm interested in presently. Hopefully it does!''


\end{document}
$ pdflatex test.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.26 (TeX Live 2024) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
 restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
(./test.tex
LaTeX2e <2024-06-01> patch level 2
L3 programming layer <2024-08-30>
(/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2024/02/08 v1.4n Standard LaTeX document class
(/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/microtype/microtype.sty (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/graphics/keyval.sty) (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/etoolbox/etoolbox.sty) (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/microtype/microtype-pdftex.def) (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/microtype/microtype.cfg)) (/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/l3backend/l3backend-pdftex.def)
No file test.aux.
(/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/microtype/mt-cmr.cfg)
[1{/Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-var/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}] (./test.aux) )</Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr10.pfb></Users/cscheid/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr17.pfb>
Output written on test.pdf (1 page, 27090 bytes).
Transcript written on test.log.

The resulting PDF doesn't have overhanging quotes:

[lokesh-krishna]

Thanks!