The p and the underline are too close together. How can I increase the spacing?
1 Like
I’m not sure you can. Here is a similar discussion
Thanks.
It seems to be where it is supposed to be. Any lower and it would intersect with the serif of the p, and that would look worse. Below the descender, and it is too far. Based on your font choice, this is the optimal position.
This is in Word, using Academico…
1 Like
It is a common limitation.
Some software have several options, like InDesign
or more advanced type setting systems:
with some ‘exotic’ versions
I believe underlining is considered ‘bad typography’ so perhaps it’s better to find an alternative paragraph/character format in the Dorico project.
3 Likes
In traditional letterpress printing, there was no way to have underlined text, because the underline would have had to be on the same piece of lead as the letter. Underlining was a typewriter thing, and it was the equivalent of typeset italics. You’ll notice that books, newspapers, and magazines never have underlined text.
What you could do in letterpress is add a rule – a straight line completely underneath the text. In your examples which have the line completely underneath the descenders, like:
That’s really a rule, not underlining.
3 Likes
This is incorrect.
The typewriter postdates the lead press and advanced typography, including underlining, which was certainly possible and can often be seen in mathematical texts. Looking at any old mathematical text clearly shows that anything could be done given time (and money)—an underline was the least of their worries. For a standard newspaper, this was probably not economical, practical, and of little value. However, I would assume that a dedicated set of underscored types would be relatively easy to use if required. The Linotype could handle up to 4 magazines (fonts), but only a few models could change magazines (fonts) on the same line of text. Also, remember that each font size required a magazine, so better not ‘waste’ it on underlined text.
The frequent use of underline comes from the typewriter that could not produce italic or bold (if you exclude ‘poor man’s bold’, which some ‘standard’ typewriters could do) until the IBM Selectric was introduced. Manuscripts were often typed on standard typewriters, with _ for italics (uppercase for bold) for the typesetter. This has remained even today, with markdown accepting _ as a code for italics, even if * is the official code, as can be seen even in Dorico, which supports both. The (frequent) use of uppercase (very hard to read, at least when reading quickly) in legal documents, even today, is an interesting topic in itself.
The only practical use today (outside the fields of science) of the underscore is probably in hyperlinks.
The ruler however, can be a ‘decorative’ element,
and some publishers even used a double ruler
IMHO not so pretty (including the period). MS Word still have this;
for some obscure reason.
Well, you’re right that technically letterpress and linotype could have what we now think of as underlining – a rule directly underneath the baseline of the type, intersecting with descenders – but in practice I think they really didn’t, because it would have required an additional font, as you note. I have a fair amount of experience with letterpress, and I’ve never seen or heard of an underlined font. I’m not sure what mathematical texts you have in mind, but I would guess that they used rules rather than underlines.
Drifting off topic, but both characters are official parts of the Markdown spec for emphasis.
2 Likes
I’ve never seen images of lead types for mathematical texts. As such text do not normally follow ‘straight lines’ it guess it is not as easy as placing types in a line,
might even be partially complete types.
I fully trust Donald E. Knuth, L. Lamport et al. that they know what they talk about when it comes to typography and the terms used.