highlighting strikeout text with ulem shifts the line downwards

Question

I'm trying to highlight a text with a strikeout word by defining a new command as explained in the docs of ulem. Unfortunately, that moves down the strikeout line a few points, which looks strange compared to non-highlighted text. How to avoid/fix this?

Here is an MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{ulem}
\newcommand\hl{\bgroup\markoverwith{\textcolor{yellow}{\rule[-.5ex]{.1pt}{2.5ex}}}\ULon}
\begin{document}
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.

\hl{Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.}
\end{document}

Answer 1

That's an interesting observation and here comes an overkill answer based on TikZ.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\usepackage{tikzpagenodes}
\usepackage{ulem}
\newcommand\HighLight{\bgroup\markoverwith{\textcolor{yellow}{\rule[-.5ex]{.1pt}{2.5ex}}}\ULon}

\tikzset{StrikeOut/.style={thick,-}}


\makeatletter
\newcommand{\gettikzxy}[3]{% from https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/58590/121799
  \tikz@scan@one@point\pgfutil@firstofone#1\relax
  \global\edef#2{\the\pgf@x}%
  \global\edef#3{\the\pgf@y}%
}
\makeatother
\newcommand{\StrikeOut}[2][2pt]{%
\tikz[remember picture,overlay, baseline=(Begin.base)]{%
\node[anchor=base,inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt] (Begin) {\strut};}#2%
\tikz[remember picture,overlay, baseline=(End.base)]{%
\node[anchor=base,inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt] (End) {\strut};}%
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
\gettikzxy{($(Begin.north)-(current page.south west)$)}{\BeginxN}{\BeginyN}
\gettikzxy{($(End.north)-(current page.south west)$)}{\EndxN}{\EndyN}%\typeout{\BeginyN\space\EndyN}
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\mytest}{\EndyN-\BeginyN}
\ifnum\mytest=0\relax% begin and and in the same line %\typeout{begin and end in the same line}
% \draw[thick,-] ($(Begin.north)-(#1,0)$) -- ($(Begin.south)-(#1,0)$)
% -- ($(End.south)+(#1,0)$) -- ($(End.north)+(#1,0)$) -- cycle;
\draw[StrikeOut] (Begin) -- (End);
\else% \typeout{end below begin}
\path (current page text area.north west) -- (current page text area.south west)
node(WestLine)[left]{};
\path (current page text area.north east) -- (current page text area.south east)
node(EastLine)[right]{};
\gettikzxy{($(End.north)-(current page.south west)$)}{\EndxN}{\EndyN}
\gettikzxy{($(Begin.south)-(current page.south west)$)}{\BeginxS}{\BeginyS}
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\mytest}{\BeginyS-\EndyN+1pt}% \typeout{\mytest}
\ifnum\mytest<2\relax% \typeout{end in the next line after begin}%
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\mytest}{\BeginxS-\EndxN}% \typeout{\mytest}
\ifnum\mytest>0\relax
% \draw[thick,-] (Begin.north -| EastLine) -- ($(Begin.north)-(#1,0)$) -- 
% ($(Begin.south)-(#1,0)$) -- (Begin.south -| EastLine);
\draw[StrikeOut] (Begin) -- (Begin -| EastLine);
% \draw[thick,-] (End.south -| WestLine) -- ($(End.south)+(#1,0)$) -- 
% ($(End.north)+(#1,0)$) -- (End.north -| WestLine);
\draw[StrikeOut] (End -| WestLine) -- (End);
\else
% \draw[thick,-] ($(Begin.north)-(#1,0)$) -- ($(Begin.south)-(#1,0)$) -- 
% (Begin.south -| WestLine) -- (End.south -| WestLine)
% -- ($(End.south)+(#1,0)$) -- ($(End.north)+(#1,0)$) -- (End.north -| EastLine)
% -- (Begin.north -| EastLine) -- cycle;
\draw[StrikeOut] (Begin) -- (Begin -| EastLine);
\draw[StrikeOut] (End -| WestLine) -- (End);
\fi
\else
\pgfmathsetmacro{\LineHeight}{\the\baselineskip}
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\NumLines}{-1+(\BeginyN-\EndyN)/\LineHeight}
\typeout{\NumLines}
\foreach \X in {1,...,\NumLines}
{
\draw[StrikeOut] ($(Begin -| WestLine)+(0,-\X*\LineHeight pt)$) -- 
($(Begin -|EastLine)+(0,-\X*\LineHeight pt)$);
}
\draw[StrikeOut] (Begin) -- (Begin -| EastLine);
\draw[StrikeOut] (End -| WestLine) -- (End);
% \draw[thick,-] ($(Begin.north)-(#1,0)$) -- ($(Begin.south)-(#1,0)$) -- 
% (Begin.south -| WestLine) -- (End.south -| WestLine)
% -- ($(End.south)+(#1,0)$) -- ($(End.north)+(#1,0)$) -- (End.north -| EastLine)
% -- (Begin.north -| EastLine) -- cycle;
\fi
\fi
\end{tikzpicture}}
\begin{document}

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \StrikeOut{and typesetting} industry.

\HighLight{Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \StrikeOut{and typesetting} industry.}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. \StrikeOut{Sed a leo ut
erat luctus scelerisque. Suspendisse auctor mauris sit amet fringilla
hendrerit.} Maecenas eu tortor eu diam fringilla scelerisque sit amet eget enim.
Nam vitae bibendum erat, sit amet scelerisque felis. \StrikeOut{Suspendisse placerat
vitae velit pharetra lobortis et marmottae.} Donec ut erat a erat porta aliquet. Nulla eget
augue sem. Proin orci neque, eleifend id eleifend id, venenatis sit amet diam.
\StrikeOut{Mauris lacus est, cursus eget sapien at, pharetra lobortis ante. Proin
tempus ipsum tellus, ut ultricies magna congue nec. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis
in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Suspendisse potenti.
In posuere dapibus urna, vitae euismod magna iaculis at.} Pellentesque pretium,
lorem ut vehicula egestas, velit dolor porta nunc, id interdum ipsum purus vel
dolor.

\end{document}

This workaround has all sorts of drawbacks, such as the inability to deal with page breaks and that does not work when the height of the line changes inside the \StrikeOut argument. The code is based on this post. I'm only posting it here because I wanted to convince myself that it can be done in principle while not destroying the hyphenation.

Answer 2

You could let \hl redefine the \sout marco (the space in the name is important).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{ulem}
\newcommand\hl{%
  \bgroup
  \expandafter\def\csname sout\space\endcsname{\bgroup \ULdepth =-.8ex \ULset}%
  \markoverwith{\textcolor{yellow}{\rule[-.5ex]{.1pt}{2.5ex}}}%
  \ULon}
\begin{document}
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.

\hl{Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.}

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.
\end{document}

---

EDIT: thanks to muzimuzhiZ for letting me know that the above became outdated.

If you're using a newer version of ulem starting from 2019-11-28, the \sout macro isn't changed by the above, since it is now defined as \protected\def\sout{...} instead. You can use the following then:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{ulem}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\hl{%
  \bgroup
  \UL@protected\def\sout{\bgroup \ULdepth =-.8ex \ULset}%
  \markoverwith{\textcolor{yellow}{\rule[-.5ex]{.1pt}{2.5ex}}}%
  \ULon}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.

\hl{Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.}

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing \sout{and typesetting} industry.
\end{document}