The default value of \updefault

Question

The result of the following MWE is up with the newest TeX Live 2019.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
  \updefault
\end{document}

Why was the default value of \updefault changed from n to up?

There is something about changes to the font selection mechanism in https://www.latex-project.org/news/latex2e-news/ltnews31.pdf but I haven't gone through the details. — campa, Feb 11 '20 at 14:50
I didn't claim the answer was in there; that's why I posted only a comment. If I understand correctly, what formerly was \upshape is now \normalshape, which is a shorthand for \upshape\ulcshape (the latter being also new). You can find the changes in source2e but there is no exact explanation as why. Hopefully someone from the LaTeX team will answer. — campa, Feb 11 '20 at 16:03

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 11 '20 at 16:15

In the new latex \itshape and \scshape has been splitted. They can now (if the font has the shapes) be set independently. This change means that \updefault only describes the slant (up). The new command \normalshape can be use to reset both.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\begin{document}

{ \itshape Abc \scshape  Abc \upshape Abc }

{ \itshape Abc \scshape  Abc \normalshape Abc }


\end{document}

Output latex 20200202:

Old output of the first line:

Thank you very much the answer! – hair-splitter Feb 11 '20 at 16:24 — hair-splitter, Feb 11 '20 at 16:24

The default value of \updefault

1 Answers1

Output latex 20200202:

Old output of the first line:

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