[Tex/LaTex] Extreme vertical spacing between lines

line-spacing

How can I fine tune and reduce the vertical spacing of lines so characters from lines above and below are almost pixel-touching each other?

Example:

Example of lines barely touching each other

Best Answer

While \offinterlineskip\lineskip1pt might seem to give the desired result, lines will be irregularly spaced, because the distance between base lines will depend on the presence of ascenders (letters like "d") or descenders (letters like "y"). Moreover not all descenders and ascenders are equal.

Tight typesetting can be obtained by calling, say, \fontsize{10}{10} for ten point size. One can get cheaply such a setting by modifying the internal function \set@fontsize:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox,lipsum}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd\set@fontsize{#3}{#2}{}{}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\large\lipsum[2]
\end{document}

Only etoolbox is required, of course. The patch will substitute the call of the third argument to \set@fontsize with the second; the third parameter is indeed the baselineskip and the second is the font size.

Note that this will affect all text at all sizes.

enter image description here

If only some paragraphs are to be "tightly typeset", then the environment tight defined as follows will do the job. The \addvspace commands have been used on the assumption that the code is used for examples. Variations on the theme are possible.

\makeatletter
\let\tightset@fontsize\set@fontsize
\patchcmd\tightset@fontsize{#3}{#2}{}{}
\newenvironment{tight}
  {\par\addvspace\topsep
   \let\set@fontsize\tightset@fontsize
   \fontsize{\f@size}{\f@baselineskip}\selectfont}
  {\par\addvspace\topsep}
\makeatother

If tight typesetting is needed for captions, it's simpler. With the caption package define the font used by saying something like

\DeclareCaptionFont{tight}{\fontsize{9}{9}\selectfont}
\captionsetup{font=tight,labelfont=bf}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Extreme vertical spacing between list items & nested lists

Based on the answer to this other question, here is a solution that preserves even distance between baselines.

\makeatletter
\let\tightset@fontsize\set@fontsize
\patchcmd\tightset@fontsize{#3}{#2}{}{}
\newcommand{\tighten}{\let\set@fontsize\tightset@fontsize
  \fontsize{\f@size}{\f@baselineskip}\selectfont}
\makeatother

Then the list can be input as

\begin{enumerate}[parsep=0pt]
\item List 1
  \begin{enumerate}[label=\Alph*.,before*=\tighten,noitemsep,topsep=0pt]
  \item Item Aabcg
  \item Item Bagcb
  \item Item Cabcg
  \item Item Dagcb
  \end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

Minimal example:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox,enumitem}

\makeatletter
\let\tightset@fontsize\set@fontsize
\patchcmd\tightset@fontsize{#3}{#2}{}{}
\newcommand{\tighten}{\let\set@fontsize\tightset@fontsize
  \fontsize{\f@size}{\f@baselineskip}\selectfont}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}[parsep=0pt]
  \item List 1
  \begin{enumerate}[label=\Alph*.,before*=\tighten,nolistsep,topsep=0pt]
    \item Item A
    \item Item B
    \item Item C
    \item Item D
  \end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

Checking the output with \showbox proves that the spacing is the same: between the "List 1" line and the "Item A" line, TeX inserts 3.16669pt glue, exactly the same as the glue inserted between the "Item A" and the "Item B" lines (and the others as well), which is right, since those lines have no descenders. The height of the "Item A" line is 6.83331pt, which added to 3.16669pt gives 10pt.

There might be a slight difference in a real document if \topsep in the inner list is not set to zero (the nolistsep key sets it to 0pt plus 0.1pt), but not with the article class which does \raggedbottom.

[Tex/LaTex] Adjust vertical spacing in tabular containing \href

Maybe this'll help you:

For the correct vertical spacing I will use listliketab
Amsmath's \smash is surprisingly helpful.

Introducing to `\smash`

If I'd use

\newcommand*{\AddLinkToFile}[1]{\smash{\href{run:#1.pdf}{\strut#1}}}

The href-box becomes now a very small box (1pt height, 1pt depth?). This is also true for not-tabularized material.
$\smash{}$

There are three optional argument to `\smash`

After playing around with [b] and [t] to see its effect I tried

\newcommand*{\AddLinkToFile}[1]{\smash[]{\href{run:#1.pdf}{\strut#1}}}

which does wonders:
$\smash[]{…}$

(The height and depth of the resulting box comes from \strut.)
Bug or feature? I don't know …

But every use of \strut ([t], [b], [] or no optional at all) breaks the \AddLinkToFile in a real itemize environment unless you add a \leavevmode in front of it.

So the final \AddLinkToFile command would be:

\newcommand*{\AddLinkToFile}[1]{\leavevmode\smash[]{\href{run:#1.pdf}{\strut#1}}}

Code

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{listliketab}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\newcommand*{\AddLinkToFile}[1]{\leavevmode\smash[]{\href{run:#1.pdf}{\strut#1}}}
%\renewcommand*{\AddLinkToFile}[1]{#1} % for my own testing purposes
\storestyleof{itemize}

\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}
    \item \AddLinkToFile{a} b 
    \item \AddLinkToFile{c} d
\end{itemize}

\AddLinkToFile{A}

\begin{minipage}{2.0cm}
\begin{listliketab}
  \begin{tabular}{Ll}
    \textbullet & \AddLinkToFile{a} A \\
    \textbullet & \AddLinkToFile{c} d
  \end{tabular}
\end{listliketab}
\end{minipage}
%
\begin{minipage}{2.0cm}
\begin{listliketab}
\renewcommand*{\arraystretch}{2.4}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
    \AddLinkToFile{e} & f \\
    \AddLinkToFile{g} & h
\end{tabular}
\end{listliketab}
\end{minipage}
%
\begin{minipage}{2.0cm}
\begin{listliketab}
\tabulinesep=0.5ex
\begin{tabu}{ll}
    \AddLinkToFile{i} & j \\
    \AddLinkToFile{k} & l
\end{tabu}
\end{listliketab}
\end{minipage}
%
\begin{minipage}{2.0cm}
\begin{listliketab}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
    \AddLinkToFile{l} & m \\[1.25ex]
    \AddLinkToFile{n} & o
\end{tabular}
\end{listliketab}
\end{minipage}
\end{document}