# [NTG-context] \pm set too low in MkIV?

Mikael P. Sundqvist mickep at gmail.com
Wed May 7 10:46:24 CEST 2014

On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 2:34 AM, Sanjoy Mahajan <sanjoy at mit.edu> wrote:
>> the + aligns on the math axis so one can argue if the type-one variant
>> is ok ... so we would need a smaller (less height) + then which would
>> look visually weird
>
> Plain TeX doesn't align the plus/minus to the math axis.  Rather, the
> minus is aligned to the baseline, and the horizontal stroke of the plus
> is above the baseline.  I agree that it looks a bit strange with the
> horizontal stroke of the plus sign not aligned with the horizontal
> stroke of the plus/minus.  Bt it looks even more jarring to have the
> minus below the baseline, because the baseline is such a strong visual
> line.
>
> I don't think I've ever the minus below the baseline in a math book, and
> it looks very wrong to my eye.
>
> Pagella looks worse than the others, because it has a vertical gap
> between the minus and the plus sign, so the depth below the baseline is
> even larger.
>
>> (all can be achieved ... but the idea of lm/gyre fonts is to provide an
>> acceptable consistent set ... at some point we can think of variants -
>> or maybe the fonts have a variant already)
>
> I realize that it's not a ConTeXt problem, but is there a ConTeXt
> workaround?  Or better to go to the TeX guts and compute the depth of
> the box, then use \raise{}?
>
> -Sanjoy
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Sanjoy,

the following borrows the \pm sign from Asana (which also should be
like palatino), which looks more "normal".

% Start example
\definefallbackfamily[mainface][math][Asana Math]
[range={00B1-00B1}]

\definefontfamily[mainface][serif][Tex Gyre Pagella]
\definefontfamily[mainface][math][Tex Gyre Pagella Math]

\starttext
\switchtobodyfont[pagella] Hello $\int x \pm 2 + a$\par
\switchtobodyfont[asana] Hello  $\int x \pm 2 + a$\par
\switchtobodyfont[mainface] Hello  $\int x \pm 2 + a$\par
\stoptext
% Stop example

I guess one could do this for the other signs one don't like in TeX
Gyre Pagella Math...

/Mikael