# Shorter slash (/) for small caps with Baskervaldx?

I have acronyms with slash in them, like ISO/IEC and I'd like to write them in small caps. The problem is that the slash is quite a bit taller than the letters.

1. OT: Is this really a typographic problem or not? Should I just live with a bit tall slash?
2. Main question: is there a proper/easy way to have a "small cap slash" in the middle? If there is a good font that achieves this, please recommend one.

I'm using now baskervaldx package for the font. And this is the MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}
\textsc{iso/iec} with a bit too tall slash.
\end{document}


Here, I vertically downsize the text slash to the height of a \textsc{e} in the current font size. (note: since scalerel processes arguments in math mode by default, using a $/$ actually processes the slash in text mode).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{scalerel}
\newcommand\scslash{\stretchrel*{$/$}{\textsc{e}}}
\begin{document}
\textsc{iso/iec} with a bit too tall slash.

\textsc{iso\scslash iec} with a downsized slash.

\LARGE
\textsc{iso/iec} with a bit too tall slash.

\textsc{iso\scslash iec} with a downsized slash.
\end{document}


The above implementation preserves the glyph width and shrinks the vertical height. If one wanted the same slant and a narrower glyph, changing the \stretchrel to a \scalerel would accomplish that:

• Great, thanks! The \scalerel version produces very good results! Not sure which one on these is typographically the "correct" one but this looks anyway a lot better than the default slash. – Paapaa Jul 19 '16 at 18:52
• @Paapaa Keeping the same slant (\scalerel) is probably more preferred except that it also thins out the glyph's rule thickness, which is not preferable. But unless one redesigns such a glyph into the font set, your options are along either of these lines. – Steven B. Segletes Jul 19 '16 at 18:59

You can use a command for the slash:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{xpatch}

\newcommand{\textslash}{/}
\makeatletter
\DeclareRobustCommand{\textslashsc}{%
\check@mathfonts
{\fontsize{\sf@size}{\z@}\selectfont/}%
}
\xapptocmd{\scshape}{\let\textslash\textslashsc}{}{}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\textsc{iso\textslash iec} with a bit too tall slash
and a normal\textslash big slash.

\end{document}


• Thanks! That is also a possible approach and the result looks good. Can you explain what happens on the two rows starting with \check@? – Paapaa Jul 19 '16 at 20:03
• @Paapaa The \check@mathfonts macro makes some computations to set up sizes for math fonts according to the current font size; in particular it defines \sf@size that's the size for subscripts, so we can use this size for the slash, because we add to \scshape that \textslash should become the “small version”. – egreg Jul 19 '16 at 20:06