TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [kerning]

{kerning} is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result.

In typography, kerning (less commonly mortising) is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning is the adjustment of the space between individual letter forms vs. tracking which is the uniform adjustment of spacing applied over a range of characters. In a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces between each pair of characters all have similar area. The related term kern denotes a part of a type letter that overhangs the edge of the type block. 1

Examples of letter pairs that need kerning treatment are AV, AY, PA, and AT. These letter pairs often look awkward together, and need to either be moved closer together, or further apart manually. Professional typesetting systems and fonts allow fine-grained adjustments for such letter pairs. Popular word processors either lack support for kerning tables or disable kerning by default (this is the case with both Microsoft Word for Mac OS v.X and 2008). 2

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Is there a way to adjust kerning for a specific character combination?

Is it possible to tell (La)TeX to adjust the kerning of a specific character combination? For example, suppose I want !! to be typeset as !\kern 1.2pt!, just like ff is automatically turned into a ligature, or -- is converted to an en-dash. I know…
Mark Lodato
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Why is the distance between plus or minus and the number different?

In the align below the last element of the first row is slightly off compared to the next rows. It looks like the root cause is mostly the distance between minus and zero, but also between the equal sign and minus. Why are they so…
aiag
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Interletter spacing in plain TeX

Is it possible globally to change the interletter spacing in plain TeX?
Toothrot
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Using the charter font, F followed by a full stop looks like an E. What should I do?

Here is a screenshot of my document: On the second line, there is an instance of "CNF." which totally looks like "CNE" to me (because the dot takes the place of the serif on the feet of an E). I'm using the charter package and font. What should I…
Vegard
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Default kerning around hyphens is ugly

I have noticed that default kerning of hyphenated words (like "Finite-Valued") looks like this: e-V As you can see, the hyphen is too close to the e and too far away from the V. Is there a way to fix this, so the hyphen has proper kerning?
Jan Pokorný
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Find optimal kerning for space between inline math and text

When I write something like $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebra for a C*-algebra, the space between * and - is too large. How do I change this? Are there general criteria on how much such space should be shrinked?
Deniz
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Invisible text (\phantom) with kerning?

In my answer to another question, I've used an upside-down A as a V-with-strikethrough character. After playing with it a bit, I've realized that this doesn't give appropriate kerning if the character is followed by a subscript, presumably because…
user1476176
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Prime too close to f in Garamond Math

Here \documentclass{article} \usepackage{fontspec} \usepackage{unicode-math} % luatex \setmainfont{EB Garamond} \setmathfont{Garamond Math} \begin{document} Test \(\mathrm{Df'_2}\). \end{document} the prime is too close to the f. I suppose…
Toothrot
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Typesetting exclamation+question+ellipsis (!.. ?.. ?!. !?.)

All of us know that we should use \dots instead of ... (three single dots). But how can I typeset correctly the combination of an exclamation mark with an ellipsis (!..) or a question mark with an ellipsis (?..), or both marks with a dot (?!.,…
pantlmn
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Quotation mark and hyphenation problem when kerning manually

I'm trying to get a bit of extra spacing between my quotations and quotation marks (with a script), but have run into a problem demonstrated by the following code: \documentclass{article} \textwidth=1in \begin{document} One of these words will be…
Toothrot
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Kerning problems for a composite character

I am trying to typeset a book that uses the diacritics used in Romanian language. As I have to use a specific font, I had to "construct" the characters using something like that: \newcommand\chara {a} \newcommand\charA…
Bogdan Agapie
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LaTeX kerning decisions

In his answer to this question, our friend @egreg explains: It happens that certain combination of letters have “bad” spacing. I have noticed this too. As I understand it, LaTeX is supposed to make producing beautiful documents easy, by taking…
Au101
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Bad camelCase kern

What is the correct/best way to display camelCase such that an incorrect kern is not automatically applied between the words in the string? For example in the camelCase string: largestOfTwo The `fT' kern is so close, that it almost looks like a…
Elements In Space
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How can I make a smaller negative space than \!?

I noticed that the spacing in "(A" in my document looks too wide. I tried adjusting it with "(!A", but that looks too thin. How can I make a negative space that's thinner than \!? (A: (\!A:
Anna
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Add kerning correction before capital V

Kerning correction works if the capital letter is in front of the small letter. The other way round spaces seems uneven. Take for example the space between the e and V in the word PeVatron. It seems to be bigger than the space between V and a. How…
user186389
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