3

The microtype package includes a tracking option, in which the space between letters is increased. This should normally be done for sequences of both full caps and small caps, see e.g. Bringhurst's style book.

The tracking set by microtype, however, appears only in upright small caps, not for italicized small caps, and not for full caps at all. I find this somewhat odd, and it honestly looks inappropriate in a document that uses all of them. Is there a way to circumvent this problem?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[tracking = true]{microtype}
\usepackage{libertine}
\begin{document}
ABCD \textsc{abcd} \textit{ABCD \textsc{abcd}}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Sverre
  • 20,729
  • see http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/157424/7674 – Robert Jun 06 '14 at 22:31
  • @Robert Does that solution extend beyond fontspec and luatex? – Sverre Jun 07 '14 at 13:58
  • Yes, it's the same for good old pdftex, only that you need to specify the right encodings (ie. those from the default set smallcaps from microtype.cfg). [I've edited the answer accordingly.] – Robert Jun 18 '14 at 00:09

2 Answers2

4

Somewhat embarrassing, but I found the answer just minutes later. I'll post it here rather than deleting my question, in case future users have the same question.

Tracking can be set manually on an ad-hoc basis with the \textls[amount]{text} command (textls = text letterspace). Since the default amount of letterspacing is 100 (= 100/1000 em), I'm setting it to 100 below.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[tracking = true]{microtype}
\usepackage{libertine}
\begin{document}
\textls[100]{ABCD} \textsc{abcd} \textls[100]{\textit{ABCD \textsc{abcd}}}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Sverre
  • 20,729
0

For pdflatex you can also use package soul:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{libertine}
\usepackage{soul}
\begin{document}
\so{ABCD} \textsc{abcd} \so{\textit{ABCD \textsc{abcd}}}
\end{document}