The question is this: How can I globally set the amount of tracking to be executed with microtype's \textls command?
More details:
The microtype package gives the option of setting the space between letters. This is called letterspacing or tracking. microtype will do this automatically only for upright small capitals, not for full capitals or italicized small capitals. This can, however, be set manually with the \textls command, see Tracking in full caps and italicized small caps for details.
To avoid having to specify the amount of tracking every time the \textls command is used, as shown in the linked question above, I'd like to set it globally with \SetTracking. Cf. the microtype manual under 5.3:
The \SetTracking command allows specifying the tracking amount for
different fonts or font sets. It will also be evaluated by the \textls
command […].
This command has the structure \SetTracking[<options>]{<set of fonts>}{<tracking amount>}, see 5.3. The <set of fonts> is explained in the manual under 4, where it says:
If an attribute list is empty or missing […] it does not constitute
a restriction. In other words, this is equivalent to specifying all
possible values for that attribute.
Given this, it should be possible to use \SetTracking{}{<tracking amount>} to set the amount of tracking used when \textls is called.
For some reason, however, this doesn't work. In the MWE below, the command \SetTracking{}{500} seems to be ignored. Only the setting letterspace = 50 as microtype option seems to be evaluated.
Question: How can I globally set the amount of tracking to be executed with \textls?
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[tracking = true, letterspace = 50]{microtype}
\SetTracking{}{500}
\usepackage{libertine}
\begin{document}
\textls{ABCD} \textsc{abcd} \textls[500]{\textit{ABCD \textsc{abcd}}}
\end{document}
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