# [Fontinst] topaccent definition

Alexej Kryukov akrioukov at newmail.ru
Fri Apr 29 23:53:35 CEST 2005

Dear Lars,

there is one question which disturbs me for a quite long
time :) When preparing the first version of my cm-lgc
package (which is based on the METAFONT sources, but
contains also some accented glyphs which have to be faked),
I noticed that my accents were incorrectly positioned above
capital letters in italic/slanted fonts.

So I studied the \topaccent command definition, and the
following line looks suspicious for me:

{\scale{\sub{\height{#1}}{\int{xheight}}}{\int{italicslant}}}}

Since we are calculating an x-shift, additional to the italic slant
value, there is no reason to scale a *vertical* dimension
(the letter height minus xheight) by the italic slant. Instead, the
*horizontal* dimension (the italic slant) should be scaled by the
difference in glyph heights. So I changed the line above
as follows:

{\scale{\int{italicslant}}{\sub{\height{#1}}{\int{xheight}}}}}

Now I use this definition in all my mtx files (e. g. those
available in my ofntinst ang grkfinst packages) and it seems to work
perfectly for me. Am I right or wrong? And, if I am right, is
it possible to include this modification into the fontinst core?

--
Regards,
Alexej Kryukov <akrioukov at newmail dot ru>

Moscow State University
Historical Faculty