[Tex/LaTex] Double-spacing in text but not footnotes in memoir class while using arabxetex

arabicbidiline-spacingmemoir

The memoir class's \DoubleSpacing command without an asterisk (*) is supposed to double-space the text but not the footnotes or float text. However, when the arabxetex package has been loaded, this functionality is disrupted, such that in addition to the main text, the footnotes are also double-spaced (floats are still single-spaced as expected).

I am not the first to point out that sometimes \DoubleSpacing erroneously produces double-spacing in the footnotes; someone already did a year ago — but that question was closed without being answered. I hope that now that I have identified the specific package (or at least one of the packages) which causes this problem, the question will be easier to answer.

The following example file, compiled with xelatex (MacTex 2014), produces double-spaced footnotes; I would like it to produce single-spaced footnotes (while keeping the package arabxetex).

%!TEX TS-program = xelatex
%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode

\documentclass[12pt,article,oneside,letterpaper]{memoir}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setromanfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Times New Roman}

\usepackage[novoc,fdf2alif,utf]{arabxetex}

\DoubleSpacing

\begin{document}

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.\footnote{Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.}

\end{document}

Update (2014-09-05)

As was pointed out in the comments below, the real problem is a conflict between the bidi package and memoir's \DoubleSpacing command; once bidi is removed, the command functions as described in the memoir documentation (text double-spaced, footnotes single-spaced).

Just to be clear, I am not requesting a comprehensive fix of this problem, which I imagine would involve a modification of the bidi package itself. My question is simply whether there is a decent work-around which would allow me to achieve the desired result. (So far I have met with no success fiddling with \baselineskip and the other parameters described in memman.pdf §3.3.2 = pp. 48–49.)

Best Answer

Before \usepackage{arabxetex}, put

\PassOptionsToPackage{extrafootnotefeatures}{bidi}
Related Question