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<title>FreeType Glyph Conventions / IV</title>
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<h1><a href="../../../index.html">FreeType</a> Glyph
Conventions / IV</h1>
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<h2>IV. Kerning</h2>
<p>The term <em>kerning</em> refers to specific information
used to adjust the relative positions of successive glyphs
in a string of text. This section describes several types
of kerning information, as well as the way to process them
when performing text layout.</p>
<h3 id="section-1">1. Kerning pairs</h3>
<p>Kerning consists of modifying the spacing between two
successive glyphs according to their outlines. For
example, a ‘T’ and a ‘y’ can be
easily moved closer, as the top of the ‘y’
fits nicely under the upper right bar of the
‘T’.</p>
<p>When laying out text with only their standard widths,
some consecutive glyphs seem a bit too close or too
distant. For example, the space between the
‘A’ and the ‘V’ in the following
word seems a little wider than needed.</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="bravo_unkerned.png"
height="37"
width="116"
alt="the word 'bravo' unkerned">
</p>
<p>Compare this to the same word, where the distance between
these two letters has been slightly reduced:</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="bravo_kerned.png"
height="37"
width="107"
alt="the word 'bravo' with kerning">
</p>
<p>As you can see, this adjustment can make a great
difference. Some font faces thus include a table
containing kerning distances for a set of given glyph
pairs for text layout.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The pairs are ordered, i.e., the space for pair
‘(A,V)’ isn't necessarily the space for
pair ‘(V,A)’. They also use glyph
indices, not character codes.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Kerning distances can be expressed in horizontal or
vertical directions, depending on the layout and/or
the script. For example, some horizontal layouts like
Arabic can make use of vertical kerning adjustments
between successive glyphs. A vertical script can have
vertical kerning distances.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Kerning distances are expressed in grid units. They
are usually oriented in the <i>X</i> axis, which
means that a negative value indicates that two glyphs
must be set closer in a horizontal layout.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that OpenType fonts (OTF) provide two distinct
mechanisms for kerning, using the ‘kern’ and
‘GPOS’ tables, respectively, which are part of
the OTF files. Older fonts only contain the former, while
recent fonts contain both tables or even
‘GPOS’ data only. FreeType only supports
kerning via the (rather simple) ‘kern’ table.
For the interpretation of kerning data in the (highly
sophisticated) ‘GPOS’ table you need a
higher-level library
like <a href="http://icu-project.org/">ICU</a> or
<a href="http://harfbuzz.org">HarfBuzz</a> since it can be
context dependent (this is, the kerning may vary depending
on the position within a text string, for example).</p>
<h3 id="section-2">2. Applying kerning</h3>
<p>Applying kerning when rendering text is a rather easy
process. It merely consists in adding the scaled kern
distance to the pen position before rendering the next
glyph. However, the typographically correct renderer must
take a few more details in consideration.</p>
<p>The ‘sliding dot’ problem is a good example:
Many font faces include a kerning distance between capital
letters like ‘T’ or ‘F’ and a
following dot (‘.’), in order to slide the
latter glyph just right to their main leg.</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="twlewis1.png"
height="38"
width="314"
alt="example for sliding dots">
</p>
<p>This sometimes requires additional adjustments between
the dot and the letter following it, depending on the
shapes of the enclosing letters. When applying
‘standard’ kerning adjustments, the previous
sentence would become</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="twlewis2.png"
height="36"
width="115"
alt="example for too much kerning">
</p>
<p>This is clearly too contracted. The solution here, as
exhibited in the first example, is to only slide the dots
if the conditions fit. Of course, this requires a certain
knowledge of the text's meaning, and this is exactly what
‘GPOS’ kerning is good for: Depending on the
context, different kerning values can be applied to get a
typographically correct result.</p>
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<p>Last update: 1-Jul-2013</p>
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