[XeTeX] fontsizes and interlinear space

[Pablo Rodríguez]

Jonathan Kew wrote:
> On 22 Aug 2006, at 6:01 pm, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:
> 
>>>> Using XeLaTeX, I experience something that I have never  
>>>> experienced in
>>>> LaTeX (as far as I can remember). Paragraphs do have different
>>>> interlinear spaces within the same paragraph.
> 
> Standard LaTeX will do this too, if you use glyphs (or accents) that  
> cause the lines to be high/deep enough that they would otherwise  
> clash. But the CM fonts and standard LaTeX styles, at least, are  
> designed such that accented capitals don't normally cause this.
> 
>> I'm not sure, but I think that XeLaTeX (or whatever it might be) seems
>> not to get the font size from the ascent and descent (which is  
>> common to
>> all glyphs), but from the actual glyph.
> 
> Indeed it does. It didn't, in earlier versions, but users often  
> requested this, and it was finally implemented in release 0.993 (June).
> 
> You can switch to the earlier behavior, if you really want, by  
> setting \XeTeXuseglyphmetrics=0 in your document.
> 
> What you might want to do is set the line spacing slightly wider than  
> LaTeX's default, if you're using a font like this, so that the lines  
> are always spaced sufficiently to allow accented uppercase letters  
> without the risk of clashes. For example, rather than 12pt text on  
> 14.5pt leading, you might want to use 12/15.5 or even 12/16pt. (I'm  
> sure the experienced LaTeX users here can tell you an easy way to set  
> this.)

Thanks for your explanation, Jonathan.

I think it would be useful that XeTex (or even fontspec) gives a warning
when the line spacing should be changed. Otherwise, it is not always
easy to detect when glyphs can clash because of insufficient line spacing.

Thanks again for your help,


Pablo.