[pdftex] Han The Thanh's thesis on microtypography

[William Adams]

guyw said:
> One last observation, before I go off to lick my wounds.  I've written
> a tip in my tips notebook, not to use patatino for long slabs of text
> (and from my rather fallible memory, I think I can attribute the tip
> to Theirry).  Hans suggests marginal kerning works best when used with
> long slabs of text.  Using a poltician's syllogism, can I come to
> conclusion that marginal kerning using patatino as a body font is a
> pathalogical case?

Palatino began (this is a vast oversimplification) as a hot metal fount 
for hand-setting typically display text.

Aldus is the lighter, narrower version of Palatino which is better 
suited for setting long runs of text.

For an example of this see Adrian Wilson's wonderful _The Design of 
Books_ (should be listed in my bibliography at 
http://members.aol.com/willadams)

As a counterpoint, consider that the above wisdom dates from when hot 
metal type was used, as does the cited text. Since then we've gotten 
Palatino Light, as well as an OpenType variant of Palatino.

William

--
William Adams, publishing specialist
voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
www.atlis.com