Re: English versus German

In article <6o4q45p1n690i8jtt4nlqtp4d5fhk5cqdq@xxxxxxx>,
Ruud Harmsen <zbem@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:51:33 -0400: Nathan Sanders
<nsanders@xxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

In the vast majority of cases, you don't need to mess with kerning in
TeX. Out of the box, it automatically uses the appropriate kerning
that's embedded in the font. Assuming the font was designed by
someone who knew what they were doing, the end user won't have to do
anything special.

Word does not access the font's internal kerning by default (requiring
the user to (a) know that it needs to be turned on

This is new to me.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/article
s/090/9085/9085f1.png

http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/article
s/090/9085/9085f2.png

The first was generated in Word, the second in LaTeX. The second is
properly kerned, with the space between "T" and "a" reduced.

and (b) turn it
one), and once it's on, there are still problems with it.

Such as?

It doesn't work! I just tried it. Turned it on, turned it off,
opened a new file, quit the program, etc. etc. Nothing. "Table"
comes out looking just as bad as always.

TeX has been doing kerning properly since the beginning.

So does Word, after 1994 or so.

No, it has not. I have never seen fi, fl, ff, ffi, or ffl ever come
out as ligatures in Word, not with any magic hidden preference, and
certainly not "out of the box".

Some googling reveals that in fact, Word has not been doing ligatures
until Word 2007, and that even then, the ligatures are all or nothing:
either every ligature is used throughout the document, or none of them
are! Which means a phrase like "a shelfful of puffy toys" will not
look correct in Word.

I finally found out how to do ligatures. It still doesn't work (same
problem as with kerning).

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: English versus German
    ... overall page layout (exactly the opposite of what TeX does). ... Do you use the default font in Word? ... woefully inadequate kerning and no fi/fl ligatures. ... kerning is a recipe for visual disaster. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: English versus German
    ... automatically, spacing characters, words, and lines in such a way to ... font, which I bet is what you're really talking about, is not TeX..) ... Computer Modern is not TeX. ... woefully inadequate kerning and no fi/fl ligatures. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Kerning and ligatures
    ... Is there some CSS property that actually affects Firefox 3 regarding kerning ... But it may just be calling out to some code in Windows to ... do font rendering (and then asking Windows how wide the result was so it ... ligatures and other such features. ...
    (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets)
  • Re: Same problem with Minion Pro font
    ... There is only one way to turn off the ligatures at the moment: ... I read through this thread as I was trying to fix the same issue with Minion ... Manually fix the kerning between two characters than do an Edit / Replace All ... McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
  • Re: Ligatures and Kerning Incompatibility
    ... option to turn ligatures and kerning on or off IN Word itself. ... A similar checkbox kerning can be accessed under the "Spacing" tab. ... McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
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