Space between lines within fancy header or footer (after adjusting font size)

Question

About 1 month ago, I asked here about spaces between lines and learned about the importance of inserting \par at end of paragraph when the font size has changed. This helped me make sense of several problems.

Today I have a follow up question about the same issue in fancy footers (or headers). I'm trying to match the output of an MS Word document that we use for stationary. In that Word document, there is smaller type in the footer and the single-spacing is tight.

When I try to do the same thing in LaTeX, I'm able to make the fonts smaller, but the line spacing remains large. I've measured and the space between lines never shrinks inside a fancy footer, even when I make the fonts tiny.

If I end a line in the footer with a \par, there is a compiler error saying there is a blank line where there should not be one.

In my code below, I'm pretty sure I understand what is wrong. By using the \footnotesize within the two rows, I don't give LaTeX any information about the need to tighten up the row size. How to redesign so the last 2 rows come out with less space between

Here is the MRE:

\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\renewcommand{\sfdefault}{lmss}
\renewcommand{\ttdefault}{lmtt}
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\rmdefault}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[letterpaper]{geometry}
\geometry{verbose,tmargin=1in,bmargin=2in,lmargin=1.5in,rmargin=1in}
\setlength{\parskip}{\smallskipamount}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\usepackage{setspace}

\makeatletter
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\headheight=70pt
\marginparwidth=0pt
\footskip=30pt

\usepackage{ifthen}
\usepackage{lastpage}
\usepackage[hidelinks, unicode=true]{hyperref}

\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\fancyhead{}
\fancyfoot{}

\fancyhead[L]{
\ifthenelse{\value{page}=1}{\hspace*{-1in}IMAGINE A BEAUTIFUL LOGO HERE}
}
\fancyfoot[L]{
\ifthenelse{\value{page}=1}{\textsf{\textbf{The Name of My Center}}\\
\textsf{\footnotesize{}Knowledge Hall Room 1 | 1234 Your Alley | Pretend, ST 66666}\\
\textsf{\footnotesize{}(123)456-1234 | \url{http://google.edu} | email: [email protected]}}
{\centering{Page  \thepage \hspace{1pt} of \pageref{LastPage}}}
}

\makeatother

\usepackage{babel}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{fancy}

\begin{singlespace}
Joseph Pretend Name\\
Chair, Geography\\
Unreal Dominion University\\
3423 Space Age Bldg.\\
Canada, UK 22348\smallskip{}

\end{singlespace}

Dear Professor:\smallskip{}

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\begin{singlespace}
\smallskip{}

\end{singlespace}

Sincerely:
\bigskip{}
\bigskip{}

Armond T. Philpot

\end{document}

Answer 1

True. While the font switch (\footnotesize) does change the font size and baseline skip, single-line usages typically don't issue a paragraph-ending blank line (or explicit \par), and therefore the baseline spacing isn't preserved. In order to see the effect of you change in fonts, place the entire footer inside a minipage and use regular paragraphs (or explicit \pars) to set each line. Here is an alternative though, using manual adjustment of the vertical spacing with a tabular:

\fancyfoot[L]{
  \ifnum\value{page}=1
    \sffamily
    \begin{tabular}{ @{} l }
      \bfseries The Name of My Center \\[-.2\normalbaselineskip]
      \footnotesize Knowledge Hall Room 1 | 1234 Your Alley | Pretend, ST 12345 \\[-.2\normalbaselineskip]
      \footnotesize (123) 456-1234 | \url{http://google.edu} | email: [email protected]
    \end{tabular}
  \else
    \makebox[\textwidth]{Page \thepage{} of \pageref{LastPage}}%
  \fi
}

Don't use geometry and then set things like \headheight, \footskip (and others) outside the \geometry setting. Do them all in the same place.

Answer 2

I tested various options. This is the one I ended up using.

\fancyfoot[L]{
\ifthenelse{\value{page}=1}{\textsf{\textbf{The Name of My Center}}\footnotesize{}\\
\textsf{Knowledge Hall Room 1 | 1234 Your Alley | Pretend, ST 66666}\\
\textsf{(123)456-1234 | \url{http://google.edu} | email: [email protected]}}
{\centering{Page  \thepage \hspace{1pt} of \pageref{LastPage}}}
}

This fixes the problem by opening up the \footnotesize{} in the first line, and it remains in effect until the end of the group.

In my opinion, this is a less dangerous option than manually adjusting \normalbaselineskip, but I agree with you that does also achieve a good result.