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[laerm]

Hi guys –

Finally upgraded to 19. Woo.

Did you change the text rendering system? Looks like kerning isn't active.

Signed,
Resident Font Nerd

[JohnT]

For those of us who are more "font challenged", can you give some more info?  Does kerning look different from what it was in version 18 and if so, maybe a graphical example would help.  Thanks!

[laerm]

Hi John -

Ah, no problem. Kerning is moving glyphs closer or further apart to be more optically pleasing. Imagine each glyph exists in a rectangular box, well kerning nudges the letterforms closer together when that box makes the characters further apart than they ought to be. The prime example is a T followed by an o. The o can nudge over to fit under the T crossbar.

Anyways, I'm on the iPad otherwise I'd drop in screen grabs of MC 18 vs 19. 19 has looser, chunkier letterspacing. I'm set as the default UI font, Lucida Grande, so it's not a font issue. I'll try and put up some images for you later tonight.

Off the top of my head, this would be caused by OpenType tables not being active (unless it's flat kerning in there, which I hope not, cuz, ugh, lame, Apple). If, say, Arabic type also doesn't work, then that might be related.

Again, I'll take a look later and out in some screenshots.

Micah

[JohnT]

Thanks Micah.  We didn't knowingly change anything about how kerning is handled between versions 18 and 19.  Screenshots should help us zero in on this.

[laerm]

Hi John –

Here are two screenshots.

First is MC19.


Second is MC18.


Notice in 18 how the artist V/VM has tighter spacing between the first V and the /. Also, in the spot I enlarged with Digital Color Meter, you can see the d is one pixel closer to the r in 18. Many things are one pixel closer in 18: Ey in Third Eye, Pro in Proyecto Mirage, #1 in Split Series #1, o:CD:W in Belio:CD:War...

That's the kerning. Again, both are the same font (Lucida Grande) at the same size. Dunno why it would look different if you haven't changed anything...

(I'm on 10.9.)

Thanks –
Micah

PS: As I look now, it almost looks like font smoothing isn't working in 19. Mine is turned on in System Prefs, BTW.

[Matt]

This was posted for me in another font thread, but seemed apt here 



( source: http://xkcd.com/1015/ )

[laerm]

Oh, xkcd. That guy's a genuine polymath.

(It's true: bad kerning is also called "keming.")

Micah

[JohnT]

Thanks for the screenshots, we'll see if we can figure out what's happening there.