[XeTeX] Problem with leading with Charis SIL or Doulos SIL
Jonathan Kew
jonathan_kew at sil.org
Mon Mar 6 22:52:58 CET 2006
On 6 Mar 2006, at 9:12 pm, Lammert, Richard A. wrote:
> I seem to be doing something wrong to get specified leading with
> Charis
> SIL and Doulos SIL (I am quite a novice with TeX, so I am undoubtedly
> missing something--please let me know).
>
> I have used the following definitions in the preamble to set up 14
> point
> leading:
>
> \newcommand{\basetext}{\fontspec{Gentium}\fontsize{12}{14pt}
> \selectfont}
> \newcommand{\basetwo}{\fontspec{Charis
> SIL}\fontsize{12}{14pt}\selectfont}
> \newcommand{\basethree}{\fontspec{Doulos
> SIL}\fontsize{12}{14pt}\selectfont}
>
> However, only the Gentium comes out with 14 point leading; Charis SIL
> comes out at about 20 point and Doulos SIL comes out at about 19
> point.
Charis SIL and Doulos SIL are a bit unusual, in that both include
quite a lot of "built-in leading" in the font: the font metrics
specify "ascent" and "descent" values that provide room for multiple
diacritics on the letters. This means that XeTeX "sees" the lines of
text as having greater height and depth than the visible glyphs of
normal English characters would lead you to believe.
As a result, TeX's rules for baselines will often end up abandoning
\baselineskip (the "normal" interline spacing) and using \lineskip
instead (which with other fonts only happens if you have an unusually
large character in the line).
To prevent this happening, you can try setting \lineskiplimit to a
negative value (exactly how much is best will depend on the font
sizes you're using). Try something like
\newcommand{\basetwo}{\fontspec{CharisSIL}\fontsize{12}{14pt}\selectfont
\setlength\lineskiplimit{-6pt}}
and see if that achieves what you're looking for.
JK
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