RE: Emacs manual node Specifying File Variables typo

[Drew Adams]

> > That seems like a bug, to me. The effect in Info is not to emphasize the
> > text in any way; rather, the _ characters appear there as extraneous
> > artefacts.
>
> This is up to the Info reader; we could, for example, render the text
> inside _.._ as italics.

That would be fine.

> > Perhaps the conversion to Info should simply strip (i.e. ignore) @emph.
>
> This suggestion should go to the appropriate Texinfo mailing list (but
> I doubt that it will be accepted, since it loses information, and
> because this is what @emph produced since long ago).
>
> Btw, @strong is similarly converted to *..*.

Same problem, IMO.

I'm all for rendering @emph and @strong, but if we don't do that, I think
it's unclear to just add _ and *. In practice, it works OK for short terms
(esp without spaces), but you can see the problem when a long phrase is
emphasized. That kind of markup is also better for email than for doc, IMO.

Anyway, do what you think is best. I obviously was misled in this case, not
noticing the other _ and so not thinking that I was seeing emphasis.

Perhaps, in this case, if people don't want to tinker with the _ & *
convention, that particular passage should have the emphasis removed or
confined to just a few choice words. If it is really important to emphasize
a long sentence, it can be placed in a para of its own, and even indented,
to draw attention to it. I don't think the _'s draw any attention to it at
all.