There is a bit of documentation showing how to override *this*. E.g.
#show strong: set text(red)
All good. But what I typically want is override font weight:
#show strong: set text(weight: "semibold")
and that fails (it is ignored). I suspect this is because strong is implemented by explicitly defining weight instead of “setting” a new text default value for those environments. Would it make sense to open a ticket on github to ask for strong to be converted to a show rule instead? Or is there another way to redefine what actual weight strong uses?
you can set strong(delta: ...) to a new value; see:
The default delta is to make the font heavier by 300 (whatever that weight unit used by font is called).
Note that fonts come in discrete weights – or rather, Typst doesn’t yet support variable fonts – so setting e.g. 400 may not change anything since the nearest available weight may still be the same. In that case, increase the change until it works.
Ah brilliant! In this instance, I use a font which provides a semibold variant. I did not think you’d use delta instead of a named weight for strong.
I understand that working with continuous values sounds extremely compelling (especially with variable fonts, when they get supported) but I have a sneaky suspicion that defaulting to an explicit “bold” variant, when it exists, instead of a set delta, would lead to better typographic results overall.
I just tried something because I had a suspicion why your approach didn’t work: the strong.delta and text.weight stack. So your code changed the weight from 400+300 to 600+300. Since the font probably didn’t have a “black” weight, that was still bold and it looked like your setting was ignored.
So if you absolutely want semibold, you can do this:
#set strong(delta: 0)
#show strong: set text(weight: "semibold")
Why is that not the default? Because nested strongs stack too:
*This is #[*really*] important*
That would result in weights 400+300 and 400+2*300.
Since the weight names in Typst are defined to correspond to certain numerical values, you could do the following to have a semibold → bold → extrabold progression for strong text:
#set strong(delta: 100)
#show strong: set text(weight: 500) // or "medium"
Yes, I had come up with those rules for semibold (once you know how it works, it’s pretty easy to navigate).
Ooooh, ok… I’m not sure how much strong-stacking is going to be a revelation or a major typography footgun but I have to say that this kind of composition appeals greatly to my math hemisphere… Yeah… Setting it up so that it does semibold by default and turns to bold if I stack them sounds great actually hehehe
Is there a way, in terms of context, to display what specific font file (or variant) is being used? I’m puzzled… I see 4 variants where there should be only 3…
I don’t think there is, but that’s out of my area of expertise…
(also that’s more of a separate question; if you really need this, maybe make a new topic for it since this solved thread will probably not get the required visibility)
(once you know how it works, it’s pretty easy to navigate).