On TeX.SX there are a lot of questions of the form 'How do I typeset some phonetic symbol?' For example:.
One of the issues that often comes up in answers to these questions is whether International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols should be typeset using. (a font package that uses T3 encoding for phonetic symbols) with pdfLaTeX,. a Unicode font with XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX, or. a combination of these methods, as discussed at.
What should a user consider when deciding which of these approaches to use? This question is related to, but I'm focused on the tipa package specifically here, not the broader question of LaTeX-based macros vs. This is also related to questions about pdfLaTeX vs. LuaLaTeX, but again I'm focused on tipa, which can be used with any of those.