8

So I was looking at underline omitting the descenders and wanted a version where I could control the underline thickness. Using the basic idea from the answers there, I came up with a method that has a couple of issues that I don't understand.

  1. If I underline a single word the spacing seems to be fine, however if I underline a longer sentence it seems that the text is getting shifted to the right (ie. the underline ends before the sentence does)
  2. Things become a mess if I change the font (uncomment \usepackage{tgheros})
  3. Things become an even larger mess if I use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} when I get pixelated text.

Can anyone point out where I've gone wrong? I would include the output but I'm not sure how to enlarge it enough to show the problem clearly without it looking terrible.

\documentclass{article}
%\usepackage{tgheros}
%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{xparse}
\ExplSyntaxOn

\box_new:N \text_box
\fp_new:N \l_tmpa_fp

    %1st optional is width of gap, 2nd is thickness of rule, 3rd is vertical height of rule
    \NewDocumentCommand \gapul {O{10} D<>{.05} D(){.2} m}
    {
        \tl_gset:Nn \g_tmpa_tl {#4}
        \hbox_set:Nn \text_box {#4}
        {
        \ooalign{
            \rule[-#3ex]{\box_wd:N \text_box}{#2ex}\cr
            \prg_stepwise_function:nnnN {1}{1}{#1}\write_white_text:n
            \box_use:N \text_box\cr}
        }
    }

    \cs_new:Npn \write_white_text:n #1
    {
        \fp_set:Nn \l_tmpa_fp {.05}
        \fp_mul:Nn \l_tmpa_fp {#1}
        \hspace{\fp_to_dim:N \l_tmpa_fp}\textcolor{white}{\g_tmpa_tl}\cr
        \hspace{-\fp_to_dim:N \l_tmpa_fp}\textcolor{white}{\g_tmpa_tl}\cr
    }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}
\gapul{japan}
\gapul{japan giddy quid japan}
\end{document}

Edit: Can anyone explain what is happening when write_white_text is changed to the following:

\cs_new:Npn \write_white_text:n #1
{
    \fp_set:Nn \l_tmpa_fp {.05}
    \fp_mul:Nn \l_tmpa_fp {#1}
    \hspace{\fp_to_dim:N \l_tmpa_fp}\textcolor{red}{\g_tmpa_tl}\cr
    %\hspace{-\fp_to_dim:N \l_tmpa_fp}\textcolor{white}{\g_tmpa_tl}\cr
}

Although the \hspace is positive (??) the words at the start are getting shifted in both a positive and negative direction and the shift in the negative direction diminishes across words. Boxing the text causes the shift to be consistent across words.

Community
  • 1
Scott H.
  • 11,047
  • Feel free to suggest an improvement or alternate method of achieving the thickness requirement, this is just my (poor) attempt. – Scott H. Jun 13 '12 at 04:23

1 Answers1

5

You have to do the cancellation in one step.

\documentclass{article}
%\usepackage{tgheros}
%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{xparse}
\ExplSyntaxOn

\box_new:N \l_gapul_text_box
\fp_new:N \l_gapul_gap_fp
\tl_new:N \l_gapul_text_tl
%1st optional is width of gap, 2nd is thickness of rule, 3rd is vertical height of rule
\NewDocumentCommand \gapul {O{10} D<>{.05} D(){.2} m} 
 {
  \gapul_make:nnnn { #1 } { #2 } { #3 } { #4 }
 }

\cs_new_protected:Npn \gapul_make:nnnn #1 #2 #3 #4
 {
  \tl_set:Nn \l_gapul_text_tl {#4}
  \hbox_set:Nn \l_gapul_text_box {#4}
  \group_begin:
  \fp_set:Nn \l_gapul_gap_fp {.05}
  \fp_mul:Nn \l_gapul_gap_fp {#1}
  \leavevmode\vphantom{\l_gapul_text_tl} % so TeX knows the real height and depth
  \ooalign{
           \rule[-#3ex]{\box_wd:N \l_gapul_text_box}{#2ex}\cr
           \gapul_cancel:nn { + } { - }
           \hspace{-\box_wd:N \l_gapul_text_box}
           \gapul_cancel:nn { - } { + }
           \cr
           \box_use:N \l_gapul_text_box\cr
  }
  \group_end:
 }
\cs_new_protected:Npn \gapul_cancel:nn #1 #2
 {
  \hspace{#1\fp_to_dim:N \l_gapul_gap_fp}
  \textcolor{white}{\l_gapul_text_tl}
  \hspace{#2\fp_to_dim:N \l_gapul_gap_fp}
 }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}
\gapul{japan}

\gapul{j} \gapul{n}

\gapul{abcde}

\gapul{japan giddy quid japan}
\end{document}

The apparent overshoot is caused by what TeX thinks about the bounding box of the characters.

enter image description here

I tried also to fix the usage of LaTeX3 names.

egreg
  • 1,121,712
  • Hi egreg, the reason for the \prg_stepwise in my attempt was because in the default font (comment out \renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}) the y has a very narrow descender and rather than producing a continuous space around the descender, I was getting gaps to either side of it. That still occurs here, although I suppose that I shouldn't want a gap larger than the width of the narrowest descender anyway. If your solution were to be modified to take this into account, where should that iteration take place? I tried in the aux function, but wasn't able to make it work. – Scott H. Jun 14 '12 at 18:47
  • @ScottH. I tried in several ways, but it seems that printing the white text all in the same line is the only way out. – egreg Jun 14 '12 at 19:27
  • Thanks for the solution, I guess going about it in this way was bound to lead to some problems. I'll wait a day or so to see if there's any other input and otherwise accept this as the definitive answer. – Scott H. Jun 14 '12 at 21:37
  • @ScottH. To tell you the complete truth, I would never use something so awful. ;-) – egreg Jun 14 '12 at 21:42