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From: tut@cairo.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Types of kerning
Message-ID: <142132@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 10 Sep 90 22:50:53 GMT
References: <38743@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <4cac478e.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <1990Sep7.204316.26956@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
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avi@dgp.toronto.edu (Avi Naiman) writes:

> (John X. Laporta) writes:
> >By the way, are you aware that there are three types of kerning:
> >    overall kerning - an identical (positive/negative) amount is
> >        added to the distance between each pair of characters.
> >    track kerning - like overall kerning, but the values differ
> >        for different ranges of point sizes within a given font.
> >    pairwise/triplet kerning - a lookup table offers kerning
> >        increments/decrements for specific pairs of characters
> >        and for the pairs in specific triplets. Kerning triplets
> >        are often used when the font has no ligatures (e.g. for
> >        "ffl").
> 
> I'm familiar with at least two other types of kerning:
> Sector Kerning...

Sounds like sector kerning is just a complicated-- and perhaps overly
complicated-- algorithm for pair kerning.  True, it can deal with font
changes, but how often do you change fonts in the middle of a word,
and how important is tight spacing when you do?

> Optical Spacing.  This isn't so much a 'kerning' technique as an overall
> character spacing technique developed by David Kindersley, a typographer,
> together with Neil Wiseman, a computer scientist.

Was this work done in order to earn a graduate degree?  Sounds like it.
Again, this just seems like another complicated algorithm for pair kerning.

Sometimes I think kerning is too important to be left to professionals.
I've seen some typesetting where they really went overboard on the pair
kerning, with Te almost on top of each other, etc.  Just how complicated
does this need to be?  After all, we're only talking about T A V W and
a few other overhanging letters.  Underhangs like the Q squiggly can be
handled easily with side bearings (advance width).