CompuServe Messages

Gary I would certainly agree with you about kerning … it is one of the key factors which make for professional quality output. However, I don't quite understand you when you say that all a DTP program should need them for _is_ kerning … a DTP prog must know the width of the letters as a minimum otherwise it has no way of determining line breaks etc. Something like PageStream could derive the widths from the Type-1 fonts algorithmically since it is capable of rendering fonts from Type-1 source but it's not an efficient way of doing things. Other DTP packages need metrics (not necessarilly AFMs) and these could be derived from AFMs very easilly, even if the DTP package can't render Type-1 fonts. Oh how I wish that the standards that Adobe started out with every good intention had been maintained through the industry … but they, like AGFA, got too commercially minded and failed to allow their standards to permeate. The most perfect example of the adoption of a commercial standard has got to be the Philips compact cassette … they invented the cassette, but gave the license and technology knowledge away free to anyone who wanted it. Mike (Whapping from the UK)