[XeTeX] Underline thickness and position for Type1

[Pander]

Yannis Haralambous wrote:
> I have used underlining in critical editions for various reasons. I used
> underlin.sty which works great (it allows hyphenation and underlines
> interword spaces).
> 
> I would like to react to what I think you're saying. Are you saying that
> each font should have its own underline width and depth?

Nope, I just cam across these settings in Type1 fonts. they have been
added there by the type designer already and was wondering why XeTeX is
not able to use them and if XeTeX should be able to (default behaviour
or not) use them.

If you run pfb2pfa on a bunch of pfb files you will see the different
settings. They even differs within a font family (different values for
the bold, italic, etc.).

> I'm not sure this is a good choice. I wouldn't a word in bold to have a
> heavier and deeper underline than a word in plain style next to it. I
> would prefer to have the same underline parameters for a give font size,
> regardless of the font.
> 
> Of course it would be only fair to let the font designer specify what
> (s)he considers as the ideal width and depth, so maybe a good compromise
> would be to take the parameters of the dominant font and apply them to
> all fonts.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Le 16 mai 09 à 17:46, Pander a écrit :
> 
>> However, an optional parameter could be set when selecting a font. By
>> default the current behaviour(=always the same) for backwards
>> comparability is an option. Or by default the new situation(=dictated by
>> the font), in order to promote this new feature, would be a wise
>> starting point.