Christoph Wedler writes: Yes. You would use the same font, just not the same font-instance. Strings like "fixed" and "-adobe-courier-bold-r-*-*-*-180-*-*-*-*-*-*" are valid instantiators under X11. What I'm proposing is to allow instantiators like ["fixed" :baseline-shift 2], to create a shifted instance of the font. You could then use this kind of instantiator in any place where a string instantiator is accepted now. It makes good sense to me, given the overall system structure. I think it fits in well with the idea that Bill Perry keeps raising about chopping up the font specifications into individual properties. It's all just another keyword/value part in the instantiator vector. If we use a face property, we have a semantic collision between the glyph baseline property and the baseline-shift property.