soul: broken highlighting with xcolor when using \selectcolormodel

Question

I try to highlight text using the soul package. But I experience problems if I use it in combinations with the xcolor command selectcolormodel, only spaces are highlighted as shown in the MWE:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\selectcolormodel{rgb}

\usepackage{soul}

\begin{document}

Please, highlight \hl{this small text}.

\end{document}

Output: soul output

Thanks, I had this problem with just standard \usepackage{xcolor}. The top answer fixed it. — Joe Corneli, May 30 '16 at 20:59
It seems to me that the issue no longer exists as of today's TeX Live. Can you confirm? — , Apr 09 '23 at 18:55

Ulrike Fischer · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-12T12:47:50.163

21

Edit

The problem has been resolved. With soul 2023-02-18 v3.0 the fix is no longer needed.

Old answer

The source of the problem is that both xcolor and soul use \dimen@ as a temporary register. And soul uses it at a place where it can't be sure that other commands temper around with this dimen. You can redefine the internal soul command, or you can use \convertcolorsUfalse so that xcolor no longer recalculate color at usage:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\selectcolormodel{rgb}
%\convertcolorsUfalse
\usepackage{soul}
\makeatletter
\newdimen\SOUL@dimen %new
\def\SOUL@ulunderline#1{{%
    \setbox\z@\hbox{#1}%
    %\dimen@=\wd\z@
    \SOUL@dimen=\wd\z@ %new
    \dimen@i=\SOUL@uloverlap
    \advance\SOUL@dimen2\dimen@i %\dimen@ exchanged too
    \rlap{%
        \null
        \kern-\dimen@i
        %\SOUL@ulcolor{\SOUL@ulleaders\hskip\dimen@}%
        \SOUL@ulcolor{\SOUL@ulleaders\hskip\SOUL@dimen}% new
    }%
    \unhcopy\z@
}}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
please, highlight \hl{this small text}.
\end{document}

If you don't want to copy the definition from soul.sty, here's a way to patch the command:

\usepackage{soul}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\SOUL@ulunderline}{\dimen@}{\SOUL@dimen}{}{}
\patchcmd{\SOUL@ulunderline}{\dimen@}{\SOUL@dimen}{}{}
\patchcmd{\SOUL@ulunderline}{\dimen@}{\SOUL@dimen}{}{}
\newdimen\SOUL@dimen
\makeatother

This will work even if the soul package is updated (because the patch won't succeed).

edited Apr 12 '23 at 12:47

answered Mar 18 '12 at 16:36

Ulrike Fischer

327,261

Shouldn't \SOUL@dimen go also after \advance? – egreg Mar 18 '12 at 16:40
Great solution! thx :) – ejoerns Mar 18 '12 at 16:47
@egreg Yes I have corrected it (I had read \dimen@2 as a name instead of \dimen@ + 2\dimen@i.) – Ulrike Fischer Mar 18 '12 at 16:50
@UlrikeFischer I've added a version with \patchcmd. – egreg Mar 18 '12 at 16:54
2

This should probably go to Melchior Franz, the soul maintainer. – Daniel Mar 19 '12 at 19:13
2

Since I'm still experiencing the same issue 4 years later I sense this hasn't been fixed in the package. But this fix worked. – Joe Corneli May 30 '16 at 21:00
It seems to me that the issue presented in the MWE no longer exists as of today's TeX Live. Would your redefinition of \SOUL@ulunderline break anything? Is it still necessary for anything or can we get rid of it in our preambles? – Apr 09 '23 at 18:59
@AlMa0 the patch is no longer needed, we uploaded a corrected version. It should do harm if you redefine it, as the new definition is the same. – Ulrike Fischer Apr 09 '23 at 19:05
@UlrikeFischer Thanks! If the new definition in the updated soul.sty is the same as your redefinition above, you probably wish to say “It should NOT do harm …”, don't you? – Apr 10 '23 at 02:02
@AlMa0 yes, sorry sometimes the not disappear when I time too fast. – Ulrike Fischer Apr 10 '23 at 02:25
@UlrikeFischer :-) Thanks! – Apr 10 '23 at 02:33

Leo Liu · Answer 2 · 2012-10-08T06:50:32.347

14

My solution is just to avoid soul package. soul package is very fragile and may be problematic in many situations. I would use more robust ulem package to define a new \hl command:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem} % use normalem to protect \emph
\newcommand\hl{\bgroup\markoverwith
  {\textcolor{yellow}{\rule[-.5ex]{2pt}{2.5ex}}}\ULon}

\begin{document}
This is a test \hl{for highlighting} text.
\end{document}

enter image description here

edited Oct 08 '12 at 06:50

answered Mar 19 '12 at 06:17

Leo Liu

77,365

Interesting alternative! But I was wondering why some of my highlighted texts were underlined too. Found the solution in the ulem code. With \normalem it looks as I expected. ;) – ejoerns Mar 19 '12 at 18:06
1

This is really not a good solution. Please see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/254333 – user81070 Jul 08 '15 at 14:55

soul: broken highlighting with xcolor when using \selectcolormodel

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