Kern On

SCarewe

Hello, I am running into a rather frustrating issue. Why is my X being kerned so loosely on the right, while it is not kerned on the left? I first saw this when I set the master to autokern from another file, so I set up models manually. The issue persists, also after restarting Glyphs, Kern On, the...

SCarewe

That sounds very reasonable, especially considering you are working on a serif design. You can control the amount of generated pairs by adjusting the kB setting in the Kern On dialogue.

SCarewe

I tried up to 64k, to no avail. What I don't understand is how my editing the pair frequencies list didn't achieve anything, maybe I'm missing something.

SCarewe

Hello, I am running into a very frustrating issue with fraction kerning (which, to be honest, has been a recurring problem for Kern On). In the current version, I am unable to generate fraction kerning, despite the OT feature being there, me having set models, and the autokerning also working while ...

SCarewe

Hi, I am still wondering why this happens pretty much constantly in italics. I am getting +2 on the most basic pairs such as ll, HH, ln, etc. when I set it to autokern from the roman masters. The spacing is identical, there is no way to remedy this apart from copying all models from the roman and ad...

SCarewe

Hello again, once more I am needing to kern the space. My current solution is to simply set space – [C, T, U, V, Y] as an independent pair and then run Kern On. Problem is: Every time I re-run Kern On, I need to remove the kerning exception and turn it into class kerning, so that ĆČÇ... are also ker...

SCarewe

As someone who does kerning repetitively every few moments, I have very much grown dependant on the keyboard shortcut. While Ctrl+K might not be obligatory, it is still extremely useful. An option to customise the keyboard shortcut might be a good idea.

SCarewe

Yes, I would definitely only apply this upon finalisation. I use the small kerning pairs generated on the fly in order to fix spacing issues, I wouldn't want to miss those.

By the way, any plans for a separate spacing tool? In harmonious conjunction with KO, that would be the ultimate game-changer.

SCarewe

Coming back to this. I would really appreciate being able to define a lower limit of units for kerning pairs. Example: I often have simple obliques of roman masters, where I use the Autokern from... feature. Almost always, this results in wrong kerning pairs in the italics. I might have the model l–...

SCarewe

You can copy the data that Kern On writes. The models are stored in each master's user data:
master.userData["KernOnModels"]
and so on. You can similarly find the other relevant dictionary keys. Don't forget to copy the kerning (exceptions) as well.

SCarewe

Yes, this font has numr and dnom letters (don't ask me why, the only use-case I was able to discern was writing Vème siècle in French, with ème being in numerators). Anyway, with the update, this works as expected now. Same for fraction kerning. Thanks a lot! I will very happily finally retire that ...

SCarewe

Hello, apologies for me belated reply. I admit your questions stumped me and I don't quite know what to answer. I hadn't thought about this question enough and simply based my instinct not to kern them off the fact that I (like most others) make my maths operators tabular. So, instinctively, I would...

SCarewe

Hello, I am running into an odd issue. I have my numr glyphs set up as components (align=3), so exact same sidebearings as my dnom glyphs. Kern On wants to kern my numr differently (slightly tighter) than my dnom. Why? I have them both in the same special spacing group. Saving and re-opening the fil...

SCarewe

Hello, have you had any time to consider this further? Especially for maths operators. I don't quite understand why Kern On kerns maths operators amongst each other in the first place, or is this just a by-product of them being set to some type of kerning in the first place? I did simply add them to...

SCarewe

Things like this can often occur when components shift. Glyphs is not very good at updating the alignment automatically and re-calculating the sidebearings. Rather annoyingly, you have to open up all glyphs in text mode (just select all glyphs in font view and hit Cmd+T). Then step through all maste...

SCarewe

Without knowing for sure the real reason for this, I am assuming this is due to the principle Kern On follows when kerning: Significance in real-world application. Meaning, Kern On will not kern every pair under the sun, but prioritise kerning pairs that actually occur in the real world (based on hu...

SCarewe

Hi Rosalie, concerning fraction kerning (which is still not automatically done by KO for some reason), I wrote a script:
https://github.com/eweracs/glyphs-scrip ... ter/KernOn
It's called Set Fraction Autopairs.

SCarewe

What happens if you add a model for, for example, hyphen/quoteright?

SCarewe

I still don't see why you care about these cases. Who will ever run into them?

SCarewe

Sorry, my honest impression was that it's been like this for at least two versions, my apologies if my impression was rather skewed. Thanks a lot for fixing this!

SCarewe

Hello, I have been running into an issue since a few Kern On versions: The warning that pops up every now and then about "(glyph)(glyph) seems tighter than (glyph)(glyph)", which I can either check or "Ignore", pops up again every single time I add a new model. Previously, if I c...

SCarewe

You essentially don't have control, no. What might reassure you is that, with all the data crunching of hundreds of millions of letter combinations from real-world applications, Kern On has a pretty solid idea of what will actually appear in the real world. Ask yourself: which user will actually, se...

SCarewe

Hi, depending on the design of the master (script, glyph count, sans, serif, heavy, thin, detailed, simple...) I usually get very decent results with around 100 models per master for a Latin sans, most often with quite a few less for a heavy master, as the shapes will be a lot more similar in regard...

SCarewe

Tim Ahrens wrote: > If you select 64kB or less then you should not get the error, so something > is going wrong somewhere. Hmm, I get this error all the time, even using 36kB. I suspected this kB limit would be per master, so each exported instance essentially cannot have a kerning table larger than...

SCarewe

The A–Y "model" you have set in your screenshot is not a model, it's set to Independent.

SCarewe

This happens when the kerning size is too big. You can adjust the kB size or add the custom parameter Use Extension Kerning to your Font Info.

The number of pairs is (somewhat directly) related to the kB size, 17k for 64kB doesn't seem to outlandish.

SCarewe

While I cannot give you a professional reasoning as to why or whether KO needs to remove all groups, I would say the main reason is simply the logic behind KO, that the only important thing for the kerning are the models, and the kerning is calculated "live" (also in edit view, all the tim...

SCarewe

Hello, Since I am planning to work on a Cyrillic extension of a project, I was wondering what the implications are of using Kern On on a font that already is "finished" in its Latin state. In order to avoid text reflow and general changes to the existing font metrics/kerning, is it necessa...

SCarewe

Hello, First off, many thanks for the great Autokern from Master feature. I am aware that this is the first version with this feature, but I would still like to suggest some things that have bugged me. When setting a master to be autokerned from another source, Kern On deletes all models done up unt...

SCarewe

Yes, I realise all those steps are a rather daunting thing to tackle with Kern On... If, somehow on the horizon, it was possible, that would be wonderful, of course. My current "solution" was to write a quick script that copied the kerning values for /u against [T, V, W Y] (and their deriv...

SCarewe

That sounds good. Thank you!

SCarewe

Hello, I am using the built-in transfer models functionality. After selecting a source master, I get this message: "Some pairs already exist in this master. Would you like to keep or update the values from the other master?". What does this mean? "Keep", meaning I keep the curren...

SCarewe

Hello, I have a client that specifically is requesting kerning against the space (and I would generally agree that kerning against the space is a good idea, for cases like /o T/) Adding independents for all space-glyph and glyph-space pairs is possible, but somewhat defeats the purpose of Kern On (e...

SCarewe

@claegg Are you aware of the HT Letterspacer? I have been using it for quite some time now and it works very well with Kern On. Of course, the principles behind the Letterspacer are somewhat simpler than those of Kern On, but it still works very well. I made a quick graphic interface for setting up ...

SCarewe

Yes, expanding Kern On into a spacing tool is an idea that has been bounced around here a few times. Definitely a big interest in it! Personally, I would prefer it as a standalone tool, to use before moving to Kern On. How the model logic should work is an important question, but I guess those might...

SCarewe

Hello, thanks a lot for your thoughts. A special spacing manager would be great for (optional) granular control. The automatic detection works very well so far, but for cases like the one outlined above, more specific controls would be very useful. I will try your suggestion, for the time being, it'...

SCarewe

Hello. I have come across a question that doesn't seem immediately resolvable to me with Kern On. For math operators, I want to set them to No Kerning among each other, so that no math operators receive kerning against other math operators. But I still want things like 7+7 to be kerned. So, ideally,...

SCarewe

Hi Tim, thank you very much for your extremely detailed explanation. My neanderthal instinct just told me less kerning pairs = better. Quite obviously it is not like that and Kern On has all your knowledge baked in accordingly. Thanks!

SCarewe

Yes, I know. But the original point was to tell Kern On that we don't want small kerning pairs in the first place, so KO can skip these pairs and generate more pairs instead. That's why a simple manual entry would be very useful.

SCarewe

Hello, sorry for not getting back to you on this. I have been trying to find the right balance for Kern On to kern a font with a sensible balance of kerning pairs and pair size. Today, for instance, I set the file size to 6kB, but found that Kern On was still kerning pairs at ±2 units, which I don't...

SCarewe

Hello, in order to have Kern On autokern your pairs, you need to add them to the pair_frequencies.txt file (which can be found if you open the plugin in the Finder, click "Show Package Contents" and navigate to Contents/Resources/ Add your pairs and give them an arbitrary number that puts ...

SCarewe

Hi Tim, I have been writing these scripts mostly for foundry-internal use, just as we see need in our workflow. Things like copying zero models to smallcaps or from numbers to small figures isn't something I think needs to be in Kern On itself. The idea is also, with scripts like Print Master Models...

SCarewe

Hello, KernOnSpecialSpacing (glyph-level userData) describes the spacing group assigned to each side of a glyph. So, for example, your tabular figures will have "L: NoKerning, R: NoKerning" set as their values. Or "L: smallcaps, R: smallcaps" for your smallcaps, you get the idea....

SCarewe

Hello, yes, this is possible. You can copy, edit, and write the models and values for any file. The models are stored in each master's userData as a simple list. Read these and their kerning values from the font kerning, then merge the two lists. Should be a very short and easy script. If you need h...

SCarewe

Good afternoon, In addition to limit kerning by file size and prioritising pairs by frequency, I find it would make a lot of sense to be able to set a lower threshold of kerning values bewlo which KO shouldn't kern. Our current production workflow is based around the way KO limits kerning by file si...

SCarewe

Hello, I am currently kerning a project with an italic which is essentially just slanted with minor optical corrections on curves. Having made around 240 models, I am desperately trying to figure out a way to transfer models including their values to my italic file. As each file has five masters (al...

SCarewe

Hello, thank you very much for your thoughts! Regarding your last point: I personally think that would make a lot of sense. The more that I am typing, deleting and re-typing any response, I realise I have ever less to add to it. Thanks for coming up with such a straightforward and clean idea!

SCarewe

Alright, Entwarnung. Slight miscommunication between colleagues :) It appeared not to be kerned because the kerning proof texts included combinations that simply don't exist in Vietnamese. They are usually kerned because glyphs like v and w were put into the same group, so it just appeared like kern...

SCarewe

Hello, we are running into some issues with multiscript font projects. Specifically, we are producing a Latin typeface with Cyrillic and Vietnamese and finding that KernOn virtually doesn't kern Vietname at all – which is understandable, of course, as it occurs very rarely in Latin texts. It makes p...

SCarewe

Hello! Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation, that's very helpful to know! I tested again with 1.06 and I still run into the same issue. If I set g-comma to something that looks decent to me, the contradicting model is mentioned to be n-comma. The threshold below which KO decides to kick out on...

SCarewe

Hello, as mentioned above, it was due to my own stupidity, again. I had deleted all vertical metrics from one master. All good now :)

SCarewe

Hello, G3 crashes when I start Kern On on a file that I was working with up until half an hour ago. At some point, re-starting KO simply started crashing G3 and now I can't continue working on the file. Any info I can supply to troubleshoot this? Edit: Somehow, I managed to delete all font metrics. ...

SCarewe

Hello, I am coming across an issue more and more concerning the specific combination g, – KO wants to add a ton of positive kerning between g and comma, which I can understand if the shapes below the baseline are considered the same as the ones above. Tightening this as a model gives KO massive prob...

SCarewe

Sent you my working file. Thank you very much for your time!

SCarewe

Hello, yes, I did. I spent an entire evening trying to set up my small figures accordingly. What special spacing group do you advise? All into the same group? At some point, I was so frsutrated that I set up special spacing groups for each figure set, which also didn't work. KO 1.02, also restarting...

SCarewe

Hi again. I'm afraid I'm running into a lot of issues with small numbers and KO. I have inferiors, superiors, dnom and numr. The latter three are components, automatically aligned, based off of inferiors. If I set them all up into the same special spacing group and set models in the inferiors, this ...

SCarewe

Upon export, I want the font to have "clean" kerning groups, that's the reason I rename the kerning groups – it's only if I realise I want to tweak some kerning here and there, some general inconsistencies or whatever, that I want to restart KO. I know I'm not making much sense, though ;)

SCarewe

I see, thank you very much! A few months ago I remember you explaining that I could simply delete all occurences of KO_ from the .glyphs file (which worked fine for .glyphs files, but apparently not if I edit the fontinfo.plist in the .glyphspackage). Is there any way to do the same for .glyphspacka...

SCarewe

Hello, this is a rather unspecific title, sorry. So, my specific use-case: I am using KO on a .glyphspackage file. I have 39 and 41 models (it's a small project) for each master, respectively. When I generate the final kerning, I edit the fontinfo.plist file in the .glyphspackage file and delete all...

SCarewe

Sorry to butt in here a little off-topic, but regarding missing pairs, one set that I always manually add (which is rather tedious, as KO forgets user-set autopairs when switching between masters if you don't let KO sleep in between) is *.numr–fraction and fraction–*.dnom. Those are currently still ...

SCarewe

Ah, that's what it was. Updating the features and restarting KO fixed the issue. Many thanks!

SCarewe

Hello, after creating smallcap punctuation (exclam.sc etc.), I found that KO doesn't list these as autokern glyphs against (at least) the rest of SC. What is the easiest practice to include this group in autokerning?

SCarewe

Hello, in case you wish to remove small kerning pairs, you can find a corresponding script in the mekkablue scripts.

SCarewe

Hello, sorry to revive this topic again. I have a question regarding the counting of "user-set autopairs". For some reason, when I manually set the autopairs for fractions, KO doesn't count them properly. Instead of having 20 user-set autopairs (*.numr|fraction, fraction|*.dnom), KO gives ...

SCarewe

Okay, apologies. I am able to set models by typing in a number for a pair, which KO immediately recognises as a model. Then, the rest of the pairs suddenly jump to auto. So it appears KO is simply not initialised for the master yet, but it becomes initialised as soon as I set a model like this. Stil...

SCarewe

It appears I misrepresented my case. The master is not new, the italic file is more than a year old and I was simply re-doing the kerning with KO, starting with the Light master. But, when I switched to the Black, it simply didn't work. I will send you the file shortly. Thanks!

SCarewe

Thanks for letting me know! Anything I can do in the meantime to get this running again? How were you able to reproduce this? What is the specific use case that I ran into?

SCarewe

Hello, I have run into an issue with KO while working on an italic. I set up the first (Light) master with KO, but when I switched to the other, Black, master, I found that KO simply doesn't run at all. It doesn't turn on auto-pairs for anything and I also can't define any autopairs, let alone model...

SCarewe

Hello again. Sorry, but there is definitely something very wrong with KO's interpretation of smallcap spacing. I have tried every spacing under the sun and found that only if I set |h.sc|=|n, KO doesn't complain. I have now spaced my SC exactly like my LC, which looks terrible, but only like that, K...

SCarewe

Yes, I set up those models already and it works great. Just wanted to suggest adding them to the autokern list, but if that's already on the list, perfect! Thanks.

SCarewe

Hello, upon reviewing KO's kerning, I stumbled across its deletion of my fraction kerning. Maybe my practice is misinformed, but so far, I have .numr and .dnom spaced regularly (auto-width from .sup components) and then would kern things like fraction four.dnom negatively, for example, just like sev...

SCarewe

Thanks a lot for the renaming tip, I didn't think of that! While now manually digging through the kerning (and finding loads of – in my opinion – pretty useless kerning, like zero.superior fraction), I noticed that, for instance, D| was set to kerning group H. KO realises, of course, that this doesn...

SCarewe

Sorry, yes, my mistake. KO decides they are too tight in my Black and too loose in my ExtraLight. I removed all the number models and sent you the font file. Thanks a lot!

SCarewe

Hello again, I'm very sorry to constantly be reviving this topic. I have started to play around with kerning numbers. Kern On decides that my numbers are too loose and positively kerns almost all of them (with disastrous results). So I thought it might be useful to set up a special kerning group for...

SCarewe

Ah, regarding the a and n, here's what I mean. n| is registered by KO as KO_a kerning class, which makes no sense. KO of course realises this to some extent and makes all kerning and exception for n|. You can see how n and a have completely different shapes on the right, so I wonder why they are lum...

SCarewe

Hello, this is probably an outlandish request, but I am pretty confused as to how KO achieves its kerning group decisions. I'm sure there are good reasons which I simply don't understand, so maybe somebody else here can explain what's going on. First example: |o has the kerning group e (which, techn...

SCarewe

If I may butt in, just to explain a little, things like uppercase to lowercase are actually essential. Depending on how you space your UC, of course, but I would assume that you've spaced your UC more loosely than your LC, which is very common. Then, though, you'll notice that Hn is a lot looser tha...

SCarewe

I am very confused. I swear on Speedpunk that I haven't changed a thing regarding SC being classified as Special spacing, smallcaps, but after restarting Glyphs and KO, I don't run into this issue anymore. I can set h.sc h.sc and HH as models in my ExtraLight and everything works. Sorry for the fuss...

SCarewe

Tim Ahrens wrote: > Can you explain why you would find this feature beneficial? Keep in mind > that the names of the kerning groups will not end up in the exported fonts. That's probably just my eye not used to it and my desire to have clean kerning group names. I imagine that if, after Kern On has ...

SCarewe

I thought I had installed 0.9b17, apparently I hadn't. Thanks! Now, I at least don't run into the same issue with my h.sc n.sc as described above, but I now have the issue that, apparently, in my ExtraLight, h.sc h.sc is too loose in comparison to HH. To test, I spaced a file with HT Letterspacer an...

SCarewe

Yes, I figured as much. I just would have never considered negatively kerning .n or .H, but if KO wants to, alright. It makes sense, technically at least.

SCarewe

Okay, this is most definitely an unintended bug. I cannot make h.sc h.sc a model without contradicting HH, but I can make h.sc n.sc a model, which works fine, but then h.sc h.sc still gets -20 kerning and ignores the h.sc n.sc model. n.sc n.sc receives +31 kerning. They all have the same sidebearing...

SCarewe

Ah, one extra question. For some reason, it was impossible for me to have the SC considered seperately, apparently, they were too tight (h.sc h.sc too tight against HH). Since this is genuinely a field where it depends on the designer's taste as to how much extra spacing should be given to the SC, w...

SCarewe

Hi Tim, apologies for my belated reply. What you wrote made an immense amount of sense (unsurprisingly), I hadn't even realised that, of course, I could simply add the kerning I hardcode through Kern On. Thanks for that tip! I've now set up my file accordingly and it works fantastically. some issues...

SCarewe

Hi, many thanks for your detailed explanation. I have played around a lot more with Kern On and have not quite been able to understand at what point it disagrees with my spacing. For testing, I ran it on a font spaced with HT Letterspacer. Still, it tries to insert negative kerning kerning for on or...

SCarewe

First off, this is an incredible tool and it's very exciting to follow! I hope this is the place to give feedback and talk about issues. I have some qualms with a few of the decisions the engine is making. Don't ask me why exactly, but I space my caps identically to lowercase (|H| = |n = |b). Kern O...

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