Clipped Ascending, Descending Characters in Word for Windows

• Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.1a, 2.0, 2.0a, 2.0a-CD, 2.0b, 2.0c, 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0c

SUMMARY

Occasionally, the tops and bottoms of ascending or descending characters in Microsoft Word for Windows may be clipped. This refers to the screen only; the characters print correctly.

This is by design. Word for Windows paints the screen line by line. Before a line is written, the screen is blanked out all the way across the display rectangle. If text in the previous line is subscripted text, Word paints over the bits that hang down into the next line with white. The same thing happens with superscripts text, and with some fonts that are designed so that the descenders actually go below the baseline. This is done for stylistic reasons; however, the result is that Word clips the bottom pixels of g's and y's at some point sizes.

This is font independent, the only difference would be that some fonts have ascenders or descenders that are not as pronounced and consequently are not clipped as badly.