From the June Mastering CorelDRAW newsletter Yearning for Kerning? Steve Shubitz While Draw 4 has added significant improvements in the area of type handling, there is little change in the controls provided to adjust inter- character spacing. In this column I’ll examine FontFiddler, a brand new Windows application from Ares Software. Written by Dennis Harrington and Costas Kitsos, FontFiddler permits you to easily, accurately and permanently adjust the inter-character spacing values of your TrueType and PostScript fonts. It’s a powerful tool that can dramatically improve the appearance of your type. Last issue we provided a discount coupon that offered FontFiddler for $65 (regular price $99.95). If you call Ares (415-578-9090) and mention the newsletter, you can still take advantage of this exclusive offer. Have You Seen a Kern? Kerning is the adjustment of space between specific letterforms, such as the WA pair in the illustration. Each kerning pair is stored in the font’s .TTF (TrueType font) or PostScript .PFM (printer font metrics) file, and is used by Draw or any Windows application that supports kerning. All your jobs use the same set of kerning pairs, whether the document is output at 300 or 1,200 dpi. Kerning is typically performed on headline type, although many purists also kern body copy and some even kern for a specific resolution. Since type looks lighter at 1,200 than 300 dpi, your pairs will indeed produce a slightly different look at different resolutions. In any case, proper kerning adds punch to headlines and makes body copy easier to read. Real type aficionados often manually kern specific characters in a headline, rather than relying on the existing kerning pairs built into a font. Draw, and most major publishing applications, support this feature. In Draw you can adjust individual characters with the Shape b tool. Despite the importance of kerning, the average TrueType font contains only 100 pairs, while PostScript fonts typically contain about 200 pairs. Some TrueType fonts don't contain any kerning pairs, such as the 22 bundled with Microsoft PowerPoint. The Bitstream fonts included with Draw 4 are a pleasant exception; on average, they contain 300 pairs in both formats. Kerning the Easy Way FontFiddler lets you kern TrueType or PostScript fonts, even if they are not permanently installed in Windows. You can even open your fonts directly from the Draw 4 CD-ROM disc and save the new version to your hard disk. PostScript users should insure that ATM (Adobe Type Manager) version 2.5 is installed before kerning. And I recommend that you work with a backup copy of your font’s .TTF or .PFM file. Study the screen shot, which displays Bitstream's Amerigo in TrueType format. This is a beautiful face with 586 kerning pairs already defined, although the WA pair is still a little loose for my taste. To fix it, simply drag the kerning handle (the small square between the characters) to tighten the pair. If you are compulsive kerner, you can create up to 8,160 kerning pairs per font, although even type purists will probably be satisfied with 3,000 or less. Five hundred to 1,000 pairs should be sufficient for most of us to ensure tight, evenly spaced text. The font’s existing kerning pairs are displayed in the floating kerning toolbox. As you create new pairs they are automatically added to this list. Double-click on a pair and it displays in your window. You can also enter a numerical value in the kerning toolbox. The kerning of type is measured in em units, an em being an imaginary square that surrounds the letter M in a given typeface. FontFiddler supports accuracy to 1/1000 of an em unit. Single-click on the pairs kerning handle, hold down the Alt key and press the left or right arrow keys to change the value by 5/1000 of an em on a VGA screen. Hold down the Alt and Shift keys, and then press the arrow key to adjust your pair by 1/1000 of an em. Notice the floating word list in the illustration. Four hundred commonly used words and their respective kerning pairs help you easily define new kerning pairs or alter existing ones. This is a valuable feature that will save you many hours. Double-click on a word to display it. If you want to edit the displayed text, you can use the text box on the toolbar. I discovered the strange overlapping characters in the f? pair by stepping through the word list. (This anomaly is also present in the PostScript version.) Once found, it's a simple matter to open up this pair with a drag and drop of the kerning handle. Corel's Vivienne in TrueType and PostScript format also has strangely overlapping letter pairs. In this case the kerning values are incorrectly defined. Automation with Templates and Import FontFiddler includes eight kerning templates, which each contain over 200 defined pairs. A kerning template can be imported into a TrueType or PostScript font that has few or no defined pairs. This is a quick way to kern the 22 TrueType fonts included with Microsoft PowerPoint. I opened Bookman Old Style from this collection, which was produced by Monotype Corporation for Microsoft. Next, I selected the Serif Regular Template. A few seconds later my typeface contained 261 kerning pairs. These values are generic in nature and may not provide a perfect fit, but they do dramatically shorten the procedure and eliminate the need to start from scratch. If you only need the pairs and not the values, select Set Import Kerning Values To Zero during the import. You can also import existing kerning pairs from other TrueType or PostScript fonts. Select the appropriate .TTF, .PFM or .AFM file via the import kern table option. Print and Save Creating new kerning requires lots of print samples, and FontFiddler provides six different kinds: Sample Text, Paragraph Text, List of Kerning Pairs, Character Set, Font Summary, and Word List. The List of Kerning Pairs printout lets you examine exactly which pairs have been defined. The Word List prints all 400 words using your typeface. Don't forget to print at the intended printer resolution. I usually ‘rough out’ my pairs at 300 dpi and then switch to 800 dpi, via my LaserMaster WinJet 800, for fine tuning. If you are kerning for 1,200 dpi output, you can change target printers and create your service bureau .PRN (print to disk) file directly from FontFiddler's print dialog box. When it's time to save your new typeface, follow the file naming convention I outlined in last month’s column. In the Save dialog box you can automatically create kerning pairs for corresponding accented character pairs. Accented characters are found in slots 128 through 255. This is a valuable feature for those of you in foreign countries in which many of these characters are frequently used, and is a quick way to add another 300 kerning pairs to a font. Repair Me You may discover some TrueType fonts that were incorrectly created. This usually occurs with shareware or freeware fonts; I haven’t discovered any Bitstream or Corel fonts that have this particular problem. An example is Rothman, which was included on our May 1993 newsletter disk. When you first open this font, FontFiddler displays a warning that the stroke weight setting is invalid. This anomaly was caused by an early version of Fontographer for the Macintosh, which produced this font, and has since been corrected. To repair the font, click on the OK button and then select Font Properties from the Edit menu. Change the Stroke Weight Field from Unknown to Thin, click on OK, and save this font under another file name. Open this copy and you are ready to start kerning. It's important to note that FontFiddler does not alter any of your font outlines or hinting. Name Change Last month I mentioned that many of the Bitstream typefaces, and all of the Corel fonts, don't use industry-standard Windows menu names. For example, Bitstream’s Aldine 401 in TrueType or PostScript format has an industry-standard name of Bembo, which is used by Adobe, Varityper, Agfa and Linotype-Hell. Happily, FontFiddler lets you quickly change this name. Select the Font Properties option and your cursor is conveniently positioned in the Family Name field. The Family Name field entry appears in the type menus of all your Windows applications. Change Aldine401 BT to Bembo BT. As you do this, the Full Name field is automatically changed for TrueType fonts. The Full Name field is an internal resource used by Windows that isn’t displayed inside applications. Follow this same procedure if you use PostScript fonts, making sure you change all four members of the typeface family to the exact same Family Name. I don't recommend you change all 750 typefaces included with Draw 4 in one session. Rather, before you install a new font, change the Windows menu name. Other useful data displayed in this dialog box is the number of kerning pairs, embedding parameters and the Copyright field. The Final Pair FontFiddler is a powerful and easy-to-use tool that will produce better looking type in a relatively short time. Many of you may have over 1,000 fonts from Draw 3 and 4 alone, plus dozens more you may have purchased. With a large collection of fonts, it's important to define logical and efficient procedures to improve the appearance of your type. - Properly install some of your TrueType or PostScript fonts and use them with Draw and your other Windows applications before you kern them. - Examine your printouts for headline or body copy that's set too loose. - Open these fonts and kern them with FontFiddler. Figure about three hours to kern four weights in a family. - Print samples frequently from FontFiddler. - Repeat steps three and four until the desired results are obtained. TIP Don't bother trying to kern the base 35 PostScript fonts found in most PostScript printers. Unfortunately, the kerning pairs in the .PFM files are hard-coded into the Windows PostScript driver and can't be modified. If you use Times Roman, for example, and crave more than the 282 kerning pairs it contains, first make a copy of this typeface’s .PFB and .PFM files. Then change these file names and the Window’s menu name with FontFiddler and kern this new typeface. When you’re done, install this new font in Windows and use it instead of Times Roman, as a downloadable font. Next Month: The Last Word on Kerning My July column will cover how Draw 4 handles the kerning information in your fonts. There’s lots of tricky, undocumented things happening here that you need to know. Steve Shubitz is president of Published Perfection! and wrote the mammoth Chapter 16 for Mastering CorelDRAW 3 (Peachpit Press). Readers may contact Steve at (619) 546-9309 or on the Corel forum of CompuServe (go corel) at 72047,3402. Contents Copyright Kazak Communications, 1993. Subscription Information While the regular subscription rate is $75 per year (in US dollars for Americans, Canadian dollars for Canadians), charter subscriptions to the 20-page monthly Mastering CorelDRAW newsletter are available for a limited time at $60 (add $30 U.S. for overseas). 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