Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!usc!jarthur!dhosek
From: dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (D.A. Hosek)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Does intercharacter glue exist in TeX?
Message-ID: <3518@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 10 Dec 89 03:48:04 GMT
References: <5674@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: dhosek@jarthur.UUCP (D.A. Hosek)
Organization: Pitzer College, Claremont, CA 91711
Lines: 25

In article <5674@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> julian@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Julian Cowley) writes:
>Simple question of the week---does TeX have an intercharacter
>glue that can be set when TeX is running (i.e., without twiddling
>TFM files)?  This is question is posed primarily for curiosity,
>as I've seen newspapers that space out characters a little more
>than normal when there is a bad break in the text.  I gather the
>answer is no, since it's not listed in the index of the TeXbook.

Your gatheration (neat word, eh) is correct. TeX will not automatically
insert glue between letters. It is possible to do this through the use
of macros, although it is an unpleasant task (a macro for this was 
developed at United Bible Societies for typesetting Thai which frequently
has rather long words) and not really automatable.

There is a great deal of debate over the aesthetics of letterspacing of
this type, with most people feeling that it's ugly. Personally, I think
it looks better than occasionally having a too-short line, but it's a
point that's debatable.

-dh
-- 
"Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
   nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior"          -Catullus
D.A. Hosek.                        UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek
                               Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu