#AFM Files
Bruce –
The following is an answer posted by Stephen H. Owades awhile back
to the question "What is an Adobe Font Metric File"…
An AFM (Adobe Font Metrics) file contains, in readable ASCII form, a variety of
information about a PostScript type face, including the names and widths of all
characters in the font and suggested kerning pairs and values. On the
Macintosh, most programs get this information from the screen font and do not
use the AFM at all; I believe that "Just Text" is the only popular Mac program
that does rely on the AFM. On the PC, programs running under Windows also use a
screen font for this information, while Xerox Ventura Publisher uses its own
font-metric file. Word processors on the PC also have their own font data files
(such as the PRD used with Word). With some PC software, the AFM file can be
used to load data into the program's own metric or driver files; for example,
Word can load character widths from an AFM into a PRD using MERGEPRD.