CTRL+H
Pierre: I think Balky is referring to the real underline, not the "line" which appears when editing text. The latter – as you rightly say – can be toggled on and off with Ctrl-H whilst editing.
Balky: I can’t help on this one I’m afraid. I don’t often use text myself so it doesn’t affect me personally. Maybe one of the Adobe engineers will chip in on this one?
Chris.
Indeed, I need some caffeine…
I need some caffeine…
<grin> Mine’s a capuccino!
Balky: Just tried underlined text in both CS2 and CS. They both align with the bottom of the decenders. Are you saying this was different in earlier Versions?
I must say I agree, it certainly looks better in the likes of Word where it actually cuts through the decender.
Chris.
I never thought about it, but I suppose the Word method would have been impossible with metal type whereas the Adobe Type Tool follows the traditional method.
PS: Descenders 🙂
PS: Descenders
(reaches for his second cup!)
YES, Check out PS;s earlier versions. They all underline like all other word processing programs. It is a standard way. PS CS and CS2 ONLY do that ugly underline that that hangs so low. VERY annoying. And even if there are no letters that have that long descenders, it is still in the same position as if that line has no relation to the text. UGLY
Hello, people,
yes – this VERY annoying. Aside from all the performance misery, this is another frustrating issue.
Any solutions to the underline problem?
Thanks in advance,
Julien
Typographicly, it is undesirable to have the underscore go through the descenders. It is also a better idea to use Italics or bold for emphasis.
First of all I have to make a correction to my previous posting: I think the behavior did NOT change. In fact, I coincidentally chose a setting which leads to the same effect in CS1 also (Arial, 13px, bold, Alias: None).
@John: You may be right concerning basic design principles, but we use PS mainly for web designs that have to be very true to the original, which is the display in a browser (Win/IE mainly).
With the underline shifted to the bottom of the descenders, the designs don’t look familiar anymore.
People… can’t you see that that Underline does not look right at all. MS Office and all other word processing programs have not changed the way it underlines. Why did Photoshop? It look downright UGLY with that line hanging so damn low even when no letters with long descenders were used.
I can’t believe some of you are trying to find a logical explanation to that Monstrasity ADOBE made out of this underline feature.
It looks OK to me. And like I said, you shouldn’t be using underlining anyway.
"And like I said, you shouldn’t be using underlining anyway."
Just because it doesn’t fit into the way you work certainly doesn’t mean the there aren’t MANY people who find this a perfectly valid and very useful function to have, John.
I don’t use it either, but for people mocking up websites, it makes a lot of sense.
but for people mocking up websites, it makes a lot of sense
Interestingly, I just surfed to two random web sites. Both use Ariel style fonts. On the first, the hyperlink underlines cut though the descenders, on the second they were the same as in Photoshop!
I’m not drawing any conclusions from this, just observing.
Except perhaps to say "does it really matter? And would the customer really notice?
Chris.
The only way I have used to correct this is not very pleasant but I place an empty layer under the text and use the line shape tool to draw my own underline where I want. This is fine as long as I don’t have to do a lot of underlining. Sorry I don’t have any other suggestions.
John Nielson wrote:
Typographicly, it is undesirable to have the underscore go through the descenders. It is also a better idea to use Italics or bold for emphasis.
John, can you back this statement up with fact? Who makes the rules on this? Did some CEO in the print industry change the rules while the rest of us were not looking? Does InDesign or Quark underscore at the base of the descender in this way? Note, I don’t have InDesign or Quark, but I AM curious. 🙂 I too think it looks ugly to have the underscore at the base of the descenders, it looks like they are attached to it.
Patti
I never use underlining in word processors where it cuts descenders.
Not on any other reason apart from it looks crude and ugly and makes text almost unreadable.
I do like the way Acrobat allows the use of a box around a link though.
I can see how the switch from underline on -erm- typewriters was transposed to computers but still, it is pretty naff.
For the web I suppose color coding with a rolloever effect is neat without jubmbling up words and phrases
Who makes the rules on this?
Years of typographic tradition. Read the style books by Bringhurst, Felici and others. Or go to the Typography forum and ask there. Experienced typographers will be fairly uniform that underlines should not cross descenders.
That is not to say that what Photoshop does is correct (and I don’t think John actually said it was). The correct treatment is for the underline to be in the proper position, but to break before and after the descender.
That said, I can see where web designers would be upset that there is no control over the position of the underline, since they are not aiming for typographic excellence, but to simulate web browsers, which are generally typographically impaired.
Don
James Felici, The Complete Manual of Typography Adobe Press, 2003, ISBN 0-321-12730-7 p 84
For me, CS2’s underlining is neither consistent with years of desktop document production using Word or WordPerfect nor with typographical standards that say that the underline should never cross a descender. The underline is much lower below the baseline than in other desktop document production programs, as well as in web browsers. It does, however, cross descenders, depending on how deep a given font’s descenders are. Some fonts’ descenders don’t get crossed, others’ do. One particularly ugly feature is that the underline goes directly through the lower oval of the "g" in some fonts that have it. I would rather have the underline higher, going through the line joining the ovals.
Photoshop has never forced one to use "proper" typography. Indeed, many artistic effects created using Photoshop have departed sharply from proper typography. If you can vary leading, tracking, and other features of a font, why not allow the user to get an underline effect that replicates other programs (even if they are incorrect, typographically).
Oh boy… I come from Europe originally, I’ve used typewriters of all types and languages, I’ve used Word Perfect, MS OFFICE, Quark, Acrobat Professional, Front page, and what not. They all underline at the base line HAS ALWAYS BEEN this way until PS CS CS2 emerged! EVEN Illustrator CS2 Underlines it the way the whole wide world does – straight through descenders.
I’ve said this before and I say it now… even if letters have NO descenders, the line is still so low it makes me wanna uninstal the whole program and go back to PS7. Sorry, but it pisses me off!
Back when PS5 came out, Adobe removed faux bold and faux italic, making it impossible to use bold or italic for fonts (mostly TrueType) that didn’t have specific bold or italic versions. I was told point-blank by one of the developers (who is still listed in the credits) that he knew best, and I was just going to have to redo all of my previous work if I wanted to match it with new work. There was so much outcry that faux bold and faux italic came back in PS5.5. Keep yelling. It might work again.
I’d also note that it’s kind of hard to take seriously an argument promoting Adobe’s typographic point of view when the reference book cited is from Adobe Press.
The other author I mentioned, Bringhurst, is not affiliated with Adobe in any way. And I am pretty sure that Felici, while published by Adobe, is not an employee of the company and most definitely will not be making decisions about what is happening in Photoshop.
I’m not saying CS underlines are right, I am saying that Felici is a creditable source in saying that underlines are not normally used in quality typesetting.
Don
underlines are not normally used in quality typesetting
And I don’t believe it should be up to Adobe to decide whether we do quality typesetting according to their rules or do our own work in our own way.
Is there any good reason to use underlining at all?
It is ugly and smacks of office typewriter. (Which I guess is where it came from, as a substitute for bold or italic typefaces.)
As has been said, if you really need it you can add it on another layer exactly where you want it.
<goes away, shaking head>
Uh, yes. Simulating underlined links in a web layout. Personally, I don’t use underlines on links, but lots of other people do. Underlines are often used for emphasis as a matter of preference. Whether it’s strictly correct or not is up to the designer, not the maker of the software.
I agree. A change in the underline method sucks. John, just because you don’t use it or need it doesn’t mean other people don’t. With your reasoning, why not just take it out? No one should be using it anyway, right?
Maybe you’re just getting cranky in your old age! 😉
Add my vote to an underline that mimics a browser rendition (as an option). This is very important to web designers. Anyone claiming this is not important have never made web sketches in Photoshop. Adobe engineers wake up to this issue!
Mathias
I AGREE, there should be a switch that chnges the underline feature’s behavior so that everyone’s needs are met.
