dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (06/03/90)
In article <9702@discus.technion.ac.il>, joel@techunix.BITNET (Yossi (Joel) Hoffman) writes... >I've considered doing this; but I wonder how the kerning (if I have my >terms straight) would work. When "WA" is typeset, the 'W' actually >ends up partially "over" the 'A.' Is this an automatic process? If I >make a caligraphic 'A' that looks like, say: > ____________________ >/ /\ > / \ > / \ > /======\ > / \ > / \ > / \ >and put it after a sentence that ends with 'i,' so that I had "i. A" >would I automatically get: > ____________________ >/ /\ > / \ > o / \ > /======\ > | / \ > | / \ > | o / \ > >or do I have to specify each case of kerning separately? There are two ways to handle character "overlap" with TeX fonts. The first is to have TeX think the character is smaller than it appears by drawing outside of its bounding box. A very common case of this occurs in many lower case f's which (with their bounding box) appear something like this: +---------+ | xxxxxxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxxxxxx | xxx | xxx | xxx | | xxx | | xxx | | xxxxxxx | | xxxxxxx | | xxx | | xxx | | xxx | | xxx | | xxx | | xxxxx | | xxxxx | +---------+ Note that TeX does not maintain any sidebearing information other than the box sizes (see the TeXbook, pp. 63-67). Thus the above letter followed by, say, "o" would be typeset as (showing bounding boxes still). +---------+ | xxxxxxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxxxxxx | xxx | xxx | xxx | | xxx | | xxx +---------------+ | xxxxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxxxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | +---------+---------------+ note the overhang. The other possibility would be to set up implicit kern pairs. (this is described in the MFbook, pp. 316-7). You want to do this only in the cases where only a certain pair of letters should be brought closer together. Let's spell a word and toss an "x" onto the end of the above two letters: +---------+ | xxxxxxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxxxxxx | xxx | xxx | xxx | | xxx | | xxx +---------------+---------------+ | xxxxxxx | xxxxx | xxxx xxxx | | xxxxxxx | xxxxxxxxx | xxx xxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | xxx xxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | xxxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | xxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | xxxxx | | xxx | xxxx xxxx | xxx xxx | | xxxxx | xxxxxxxxx | xxx xxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | xxxx xxxx | +---------+---------------+---------------+ There's a bit too much space between the "o" and the "x" here. What we can do is tell TeX to bring those two letters a little closer together; this will give us something that looks like this instead (I've removed bounding boxes here to keep things a little less cluttered. The "x" is now two pixels closer to the "o"): xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx MFhackers and MF-wannabe-hackers should have both the MFbook and volume E of C&T (Computer Modern Typefaces) handy if they want to really have a good feel for the language and how it works. -dh --- Don Hosek "When I was younger, I would throw dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu spitballs at girls that I liked. Now, dhosek@ymir.bitnet I beg and plead for dates. Frankly, the uunet!jarthur!ymir old way was more satisfying."