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From: daniel@osf.org (Daniel Dardailler)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: How to define kerning for a soft font?
Message-ID: <12990@paperboy.OSF.ORG>
Date: 7 Sep 90 13:43:54 GMT
References: <38743@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Sender: news@OSF.ORG
Reply-To: daniel@osf.org (Daniel Dardailler)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Lines: 23

You can't generate kerning tables (pair or track) with only the
knowlegde of the character codes.
You might think that when you have "AV" then you can remove some pixels
to the left, but it's not always the case.
There are about 100 to 300 pair kerning entries in a standard font, and
most of them depend on the shape of the glyph, not only of the relative codes.
Just look at the pair "L-":
	in the Times family, because of the right serif of the L, the kerning of
	   the - is positive (shift to the right).
	in Helvetica family, as there is no serif and an empty space, the 
	   kerning is negative...

The kerning tables should be done when the font is created, by the
font designer him(her)self. It's generally the case, but most of our poor 
computer font formats think it's not useful to carry them during the 
lifetime of the font.


        Daniel Dardailler          |          OSF/Motif Team  
     Open Software Foundation      |      Email : daniel@osf.org           
       11 Cambridge Center         |      Phone : (617) 621 8840    
       CAMBRIDGE, MA 02142         |      Fax   : (617) 621 0584
       Disclaimer : This is just my opinion, not my employer's