[texhax] Specifying baseline-to-baseline skip in TeX

[Uwe Lück]

While Jonathan (below) addressed baseline-to-baseline skips on /title 
pages/, I am encountering the same problem with /sectioning/:

The /designer/ has specified the skip from the last \chapter baseline to 
the next baseline. A simple \vskip(glue) closing the chapter macros [apart 
from \@afterheading] would result in a baseline-to-baseline distance of 
(glue)+(b) where (b) is the \baselineskip associated with either 
\normalsize or \section, I don't know ... [with ordinary text in adjacent 
lines only; I am using round parentheses for meta-variables here because I 
know that some HTML-mail-program likes to suppress the more natural ASCII 
imitation of angle brackets].

I am thinking of A. redefining [the /next/] \section so it makes up for the 
difference of the \normalsize and \section \baselineskip's and tweaking of 
\everypar to get back the usual behaviour of \section when \chapter is 
/not/ immediately followed by \section; B. asking the designer to specify 
/white space/ instead of baseline-to-baseline skip instead [which may 
matter more anyway from a visual point of view, \nointerlineskip \vkip..., 
not sure about descenders].

For a general solution, font size switches [at least for \large etc.] might 
be redefined to replace an earlier vertical \lastskip by \lastskip-(b) 
where (b) is the \baselineskip associated with the font size [assuming font 
switches occur at starting paragraphs only; storing \lastskip and 
substracting \baselineskip, \nobreak\vskip-\lastskip etc.; bad if section 
number font size is different to that of title].

Or one could use such variants of font size switches [\large*, ...; 
\fontsize*] on title pages and in sectioning definitions.

-- Uwe.

At 15:40 12.02.09, Jonathan Fine wrote:
>Hello
>
>I posted this earlier today to the TYPO-L list.  Any contributions welcome.
>
>Was: Re: What's wrong with TeX (posted to the TYPO-L list)
>
>Don Hosek wrote (in April 1995)
>===
>It's also difficult to get tracking (really necessary with non-optically
>sized fonts) and to do baseline-to-baseline skips.
>===
>
>I'm needing to write some TeX macros for title pages, and being able to
>specify baseline-to-baseline skips would be a great help.
>
>Does anyone here know of work done on this topic since Don's original post?
>
>
>Jonathan
>
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