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<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">Dear Andrew</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">Thanks - I hadn't actually thought of
that. I *should* be able to set up an \if .... \else for
italic, since (as a legacy from pre-Unicode days where special sorts such as
italic yoghs had to be fetched from all sorts of locations) I habitually
redefine \it so that it gives \italictrue \it . I'll investigate when
I get a moment. (Though I'd still rather like to have a specific kerning
option - which, as I forgot to say, should of course be _additional_ to the
kerning tables that the font loads anyway.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">Best</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">John</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=andmos@gmail.com href="mailto:andmos@gmail.com">Andrew Moschou</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=xetex@tug.org
href="mailto:xetex@tug.org">Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other
platforms</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, October 06, 2009 2:49
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [XeTeX] Custom kerning</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>I think we can do this already, using \XeTeXinterchartoks (see
XeTeX-reference.pdf) - just set it up so that whenever the string "ra"
appears, the appropriate kern is inserted automatically, etc. I don't know if
it is possible to get this working for italic text only, unless you redefine
\itshape, but I wouldn't recommend that unless you know exactly what you are
doing (or someone else can do it for you).<BR><BR>Andrew<BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>2009/10/7 John Was <SPAN dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:john.was@ntlworld.com">john.was@ntlworld.com</A>></SPAN><BR>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">Hello</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">I expect it's too late for the
official 2009 TeXLive, but I thought I'd reiterate my request for some
facility to tweak the kerning pairs in any given font by an external command
- at font loading this would be something like 'kering=mykerns',
</FONT><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">analogous to 'mapping=tex-text',
the 'mykerns' file being something that users could compile for themselves
according to a specified syntax.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">The issue has come up again
recently when I moved over to the Open Type version of Monotype's Imprint
font (Imprint Pro) for continuity of appearance in a periodical as I changed
over from an old EmTeX system to XeTeX: disappointingly, the italic
font continues to give bad spacing between lower-case 'r' and some following
letters, most noticeably 'a', which is a nuisance as there is often
citation of books with words like 'morality', 'fragility' in the
title. The flaw always did exist in the font since digitization, but
it seems that the manufacturer hasn't made any improvements to the
kerning. Until they do (it could be a long wait), it would be most
convenient just to specify some space between 'r' and 'a' (etc.), to avoid
workarounds such as 'r\kern 1sp a', which of course breaks the hyphenation
algorithm as well as cluttering up the file.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">I seem to recall that when it was
discussed before, others said it would be useful, so I'm just trying to make
sure it eventually moves from 'pending' to 'active' rather than
'ditched'...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">Best</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS">John</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2
face="Arial Unicode MS"></FONT> </DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>