[XeTeX] Font sizes and line spacings

[Will Robertson]

On 16/05/2008, at 10:53 PM, Meho R. wrote:

> 1. Which is the ideal ratio font_size/line_spacing? In some Adobe  
> docs I saw that they mention (indirectly) 11/13 pt, 12/14 pt, 13/15  
> pt? On the other side, some apps automatically set 11/13.2 pt,  
> 12/14.4 pt, 13/15.6 pt. So which one is recommended?

As John said, depends on the font and on the document. Vague rule of  
thumb: use greater leading the longer the lines and the greater the "x- 
height" of the font, which is the ratio between the height of the  
lowercase to the uppercase letters.

(E.g., it's usual in LaTeX to use Palatino with \linespread{1.05} to  
\linespread{1.1}.)

> 2. How to change/set size of main font in XeTeX and retain line  
> spacing (I mean default LaTeX line spacing)? I know that Scale  
> option isn't for this because it doesn't add enough line space. So,  
> how to do it? E.g. I want Adobe Garamond Pro for main font, exactly  
> 13pt in size, with default LaTeX line spacing for that font size.

For a given font size in LaTeX you can extract the baselineskip with
   \csname f at baselineskip\endcsname

Probably easiest to do the subsequent calculations manually :)

> 3. Is there a mechanism to set ratios mentioned in point 1.: e.g.  
> How to get 13/15 for Adobe Garamond Pro as main font in XeTeX?

You can use my leading package:
   <http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/leading/>

Take a look at the very short source code if you'd like to do that  
sort of calculation yourself (as per your previous question). Feel  
free to ask questions about it off-list.

> 4. If I set \lineskiplimit to negative value (-1000) and need to set  
> spacing manually through \setstretch command (package setspace), how  
> to calculate ratio from 1. and 3.?

Sorry, I haven't used that package much :)

Hope this helps,
Will
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