Bottom margin vs. descenders question
Peter Flynn
peter at silmaril.ie
Mon Jul 6 20:26:43 CEST 2020
On 06/07/2020 17:55, Peter Wilson wrote:
> During the many centuries that documents were printed from lead type the
> base of a line of type was the vertical position of the bottom of the
> characters a, b, c, etc. Some characters such as p, q, and y, have
> descenders which descend below the bottom of the a, b, c, characters.
>
> The tradition is that descenders extend below the type baseline.
I think the question related more to descenders going below the beard of
the type.
It's rare, but not unknown in text faces, although more usually in
display sizes than for body copy.
Doug has already posted an excellent illustration of the pathological
case of excessively extended mathematical parentheses going below the
beard line.
Peter
More information about the texhax
mailing list.