EM fonts character spacing problem

[Christina Thiele]

Jarmo, thank you _so_ much for posting this explanation. It's great
when someone finds a reason -- and maybe even a solution! -- to a
vexing problem.

If any c.t.t. reader comes back with info on de-kerned EM fonts,
please do let us know here. Because yes, we _are_ interested!

Thanks again.

Ch.

====================================

jarmo.niemela at suomi24.fi writes:
>
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 23:39:42 +0200 I wrote:
> > I get much wider gaps before commas and between the single quotes
> > when using EM fonts (\usepackage{em}) compared to when using
> > ae fonts (\usepackage{ae}). Especially bad is "$V$," which outputs
> > something like "V ,". Also "\pageref{page one}," produces much more
> > space between the number and comma than does the following "1,".
> > The ae fonts don't produce these wide gaps and neither do bitmapped
> > ec fonts.
> >
> > Is there something wrong with my installation, or is this a more
> > common problem/feature of the EM fonts?
> >
>
> Before I post my questions to comp.text.tex, here's a partial answer, if
> anybody is interested.
>
> Firstly, there is nothing wrong with my installation of Y&Y EM fonts. The
> above mentioned problem can be seen for example in Berthold K.P. Horn's TUGboat
> article, where he introduces these EM fonts! (TUGboat, Vol. 19 (1998), No.
> 1; available from http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb19-1/tb58horn.pdf)
> See the last line of the first paragraph of that article: "or `ATM' form.",
> which is produced typing something like "or `{\small ATM}' form." In the
> pdf output there is clearly too much space between the quotes and ATM. Compare
> this to `PostScript' on the previous line.
>
> This bug/feature is related to kerning with respect to the boundary character.
> As Mr. Horn in his article explains, the EM fonts add extra kerning between
> the boundary character (space) and single and double quotes, among others.
> All is well If I type something like
> <space>`some text'<space>
> the output will be
> <space><kern>`some text'<kern><space>
> as it should be. There is no extra space between ` and s  or  t and '.
> But if I write
> <space>'{some text}'<space>
> the output is
> <space><kern>`<kern>some text<kern>'<kern><space>
> which leaves disturbing gaps between the quotes and the text being quoted.
> This error is produced by any grouping, be it {}, $$, \emph{} or something
> else.
>
> This problem can be solved by removing these extra kernings from EM font
> metrics files (there are 57 of them). If somebody has done this already,
> please let me know. Or maybe there is a better solution? I don't know enough
> about fonts or TeX to give more answers.
>
> --
> Jarmo Niemelä
> research assistant
> Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Philosophy
> University of Tampere
> Finland
>
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