🚀 go-pugleaf

> In article <1993Jan5.143540.15048@wraxall.inmos.co.uk>,
> des@inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd) writes:
> > 1sp *is* useful sometimes when you need something to be different from
> > 0pt but not visibly so! i.e. giving a font a slant of 1sp makes
> > LaTeX think that it is an italic font when using \em - this can
> > sometimes be useful.
>
> How so?  LaTeX doesn't really care what the actual font is that \em
> uses.  `Giving a font a slant' requires running off a special version
> of the font using Metafont.  If you don't want that font to actually
> look different, why not just \let\em\relax ?
>
> --
> Paul Neubauer   00prneubauer@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu  00prneubauer@bsuvax1.BITNET
>                 00prneubauer@bsu-ucs.UUCP       neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP
You can give a font a slant without running metafont. There is a
\fontdimen parameter (I forget which one) which gives the slant
per point. This is probably what LaTeX looks at to determine
whether \em means \it or \rm. You can change this parameter in
the .tex file. If you do this to one font (call it \tenrm) then
\em will mean the following: use roman if the current font is
slanted or \tenrm and use italic if the current font is
unslanted but not \tenrm. This is considerably different than
\relax!

The font in this example undergoes no change (not even a
nonvisible one), but the \fontdimen parameters are used for
positioning, etc. A slant per point of 1sp would have virtually
no positioning effect. However, all commands that test the slant
of a font might be radically distorted in their effects.

Dan Luecking