[luatex] Kerning: when does it not work?

[Heilmann, Till A.]

On 28/04/2011 07:27 PM, Paul Isambert wrote:

> Two remarks (unfortunately you haven't had many answers...):
> - Contrary to what might be implied (or simply misunderstood by me)  
> in your last remark, penalties (and by the way \special's and  
> whatever is between two glyphs) affect all font kerns, not only  
> those you set by yourself in a feature file;
> - There exists a solution: add the kerns by yourself; this means  
> browsing a list of nodes, and for each pair of contiguous nodes,  
> insert a kern if required in the font, where /contiguous/ means  
> next to each other or separated by such things as penalties,  
> specials, etc.


Thank you, Paul, for your remarks and your advice. I am afraid,  
though, that what you propose is beyond my capability as a (somewhat  
experienced) user since it seems to require a good knowledge of  
LuaTeX and at least some programming.

I can work with the popular (La)TeX packages, not least because of  
the good documentation provided and the friendly support from the  
community. But actual programming is another thing. (I tried to read  
the LuaTeX beta 0.66.0 manual but had to admit defeat).

It looks like I have to do without customized kerning in LuaTeX and  
for my future book projects must consider (horror, horror) switching  
to a commercial DTP solution like InDesign.

Thanks once again and best regards
--Till