Text Spacing (Kerning/Tracking) Settings Lost

[steve.ledger]

This looks like the answer:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307208

It's the difference between GDI (Win98) and GDI+ (XP onwards)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface

Good reading if you have the stamina...

[gracehjs]

I just tried it on my Dell Inspiron running Vista and I do not get the kerning.

[David O'Neil]

This looks like the answer...

That is discussing hinting, not kerning (unless I missed something), and they are two different things. You might be right, but it also doesn't explain Soquili's finding that it is kerned properly on his Vista machines (post 51).

[mvpdigital]

Hi David, welcome to the quest.

I read the newest discoveries, and honestly it's all over my head. I would love to understand why this is happening, but most importantly, I need to know if there's a way to fix it.

Any ideas?

[mvpdigital]

here's what Xara support had to say after I informed them of the issue:

I have now reproduced the situation you describe on Windows 98, however, as you are using the same version of Xtreme, it looks like this is an OS-level issue. I.e. a change in how the automatic kerning attribute applies to this particular font on Windows 98.
I cannot reproduce this kind of large change with automatic kerning with any other font, so I think there is something peculiar going on with this font in particular.

Please do let us know if you see anything similar with any other font.
---

So I am going to see if I can reproduce this auto kerning change with other fonts. Maybe if I can get some more, it will provide a key...

[mvpdigital]

I just typed the lower case alphabet out in Scriptina. Don't know why I hadn't done this before, but anyway. As you can see from the attached file, it seems that I have unfortunately been cursed with having used the only two characters that don't seem to have correct kerning in XP, "g" and "t".

Any font experts out there? Is there a way to add kerning pair info to a font?

Or maybe I'm way off. It just looks interesting how all the other letters overlap (some excessively) each other. But the trail of the "g" and the whole "t" are spaced... and perhaps the "c" as well.

[David O'Neil]

Maybe this helps. I don't guarantee anything, as I just ran it through Font Creator's auto fixing process, and I had to manually massage about fifteen glyphs, as they had serious geometry issues.

I didn't reproduce the outlines I had to erase with great accuracy, so double-check that the design didn't subtly change. I believe that the auto-fixing process isn't guaranteed to keep the exact outlines either.

If there is a glyph that is way off geometry-wise, post screenshots of what it should look like and what this file looks like, highlighting the difference, and I'll see what I can do.

[Egg Bramhill]

Just a thought. Have you tried downloading the same font but from a different source (font foundry)? It could be that the version of Scriptina that you have is corrupted and a different source of the same font may cure your woes.

[mvpdigital]

I'm going to try David's fix (thank you so much for taking the time to do this).

Trying a different font source is definitely something I will also try, thanks!

[David O'Neil]

(Also double-check that I didn't screw up the kerning between the 'g' and the 'i' glyphs, as I may have inadvertently changed it.)