Strut (typesetting)
Invisible character in typesetting
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In typesetting, a strut is an invisible character or element, used to ensure that a text has a minimum height and depth, even if no other elements are included.
For example, LaTeX and plain TeX[1] provide the command
\strut
to insert a font size-specific strut. In LaTeX[2] it has a height of 70% of the baseline skip (the distance between the baselines of two consecutive lines of text) and a depth of 30% of the baseline skip. It ensures that two vertical stacked boxes which include such a strut have the same distance as two normal consecutive lines. LaTeX also supports the creation of general struts using the command:
\rule[-depth]{0pt}{total height}
where \strut is equivalent in size to \rule[-.3\baselineskip]{0pt}{\baselineskip}.
(La)TeX also has the macro
\mathstrut
to be used in mathematical mode and which is defined as
\vphantom (
that is as a zero-width left round bracket.