Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.postscript > #3788 > unrolled thread

calculating kerning pairs

Back to article view | Back to comp.lang.postscript

Contents

  calculating kerning pairs Tavis Ormandy <taviso@gmail.com> - 2022-08-06 23:49 +0000
    Re: calculating kerning pairs ken <ken@spamcop.net> - 2022-08-08 08:00 +0100

#3788 — calculating kerning pairs

Hello, I naively assumed that when I did setfont (foo) show that the
kerning pairs in the font tables would influence spacing.

I understand now that it does not. You're supposed to use kshow and
apply the character spacing yourself.

Fair enough, but then how do I get the "base" kerning for a character
pair from within postscript, or do you have to parse the afm files
manually?

I understand that I can specify any kerning I want and that's a good
thing, but wouldn't you usually want that to be a multiplier applied to
the font's "base" kerning pairs?

Tavis.

-- 
 _o)            $ lynx lock.cmpxchg8b.com
 /\\  _o)  _o)  $ finger taviso@sdf.org
_\_V _( ) _( )  @taviso

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#3792

In article <jl8d0lFdt3qU1@mid.individual.net>, taviso@gmail.com says...

> Hello, I naively assumed that when I did setfont (foo) show that the
> kerning pairs in the font tables would influence spacing.

PostScript type 1 fonts don't have kerning information in the font.

 
> I understand now that it does not. You're supposed to use kshow and
> apply the character spacing yourself.
> 
> Fair enough, but then how do I get the "base" kerning for a character
> pair from within postscript, or do you have to parse the afm files
> manually?

You have to parse the AFM files (or kern tables in a TrueType font) 
manually.

 
> I understand that I can specify any kerning I want and that's a good
> thing, but wouldn't you usually want that to be a multiplier applied to
> the font's "base" kerning pairs?

I can't pretend to know the reasoning behind the original design, but I 
would suggest that kerning is regarded as being like all other spacing 
control (widow/orphan/rivers etc) to be managed by the layout 
application.

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | comp.lang.postscript

csiph-web