A method for marking text in digital typography includes identifying one or more glyphs that intersect or overlap with a text marking bounding box, drawing a modified text marking to avoid intersecting with the one or more glyphs, and causing a display device to display the modified text marking with the text. The text marking is associated with a line of text including the glyphs or adjacent to a waxline of text including the glyphs. For each of the glyphs, the glyph corresponding to the glyph bounding box intersecting with the text marking is indicated. The modified text marking is drawn based on outlines of the glyphs, intersections between a text marking bounding box and the glyph outlines, and a user-specified glyph offset, text marking weight, and/or text marking offset to avoid intersecting with the glyphs. The shape of the modified text marking avoids intersecting with or overlapping the glyph.