[pdftex] Han The Thanh's thesis on microtypography

[Guy Worthington]

Hans Hagen wrote:
> Theirry Bouche wrote:
>> Hans Hagen wrote:
>>> I wrote:

>>>GW> I've had mixed results with marginal kerning ... to my eye,
>>>GW> palatino looks better w/o margin kerning.

>>HH> the protcode vector you use should be tuned for a font

>TB> are you saying that you use thanh's protcode unchanged with Palatino?

Yep.

>TB> What could make you think that this would improve anything?

I was impressed with the results I got with cmr10, and was hoping for
similar results with palatino.

At this point, with such robust questions I'd normally have my hackles
up, however, I've read some of your articles in TUGBoat and I know
you've both passion and knowledge on typography.

HH> maybe pdftex should provide:
HH> \pdffontexperience=7
HH> \pdftypobackground=1
HH> \pdfcanseethedifference=1
HH> so that whan all match certain minimum levels, protruding is 
HH> indeed enabled -)

Hell will freeze over before you'll stop me reading the details hidden
behind `dangerous bend' signs; and not in a month of sundays will
requesting a certain competency stop me from misusing advanced
typographic techniques.  I'm only kept in check by comparing my
results with manuscripts of higher quality (one of my favorites being
the beginners manual for ConTeXt).

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?