Re: [libreoffice-users] character kerning

Since 'liberation serif' is a font that most people outside of the 
LO/Linux world would not be using, I think you should look into a more 
common font used by publishing houses.  I would look into changing the 
fonts used and see which one works best for your needs.  If you are 
dealing with a publisher, ask which fonts they use.

I am a font guy, or use to be.  I have collected over 14 GB of font 
files, but I have a core set of fonts that I place on every system that 
I own.  These are the ones I use the most over the years.

Right now, I am reading a hard cover book that has a different font than 
the paper-back font of the previous version in that series.  The 
kerneling and line spacing is much different than the paperback books.  
So, with that in mind, you will need to know what the "publication" will 
look like and use the best font that works for it.  If a publisher uses 
a specific set of fonts, use them.  If not, then it is up to you to 
choose the best font for the document.  I sometimes take a paragraph and 
repeat it over and over again and then make each paragraph a different 
font.  I then take it to friends who help me decide which font works the 
best for them.  After that, I take the final choices and make 2-3 page 
examples of the text with those fonts at the size and page format that 
the document will be published.  Then which one is best, I use.

Professionals tend to do something like this and then stick with a small 
core of fonts that work the best for their publications and their 
different page size.

Since each proportional font is a little different and their kerneling 
aspect seems to be different from others, you mush go through some 
process to select the best font for your documents. There are thousands 
of fonts that look like Times Roman, each just a little different.  Once 
you find and test the fonts, you then keep the best ones for your work.  
The hard part is the testing of each of them to get the best ones.  That 
is why I suggested asking the publisher[s], if possible, which font[s] 
they prefer to use, since they would have done such visual font tests 
before and chosen the best ones.


On 02/05/2013 04:37 AM, Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi :)
> I think LaTeX is far more sophisticated for proper professional printing.  My guess would be that 
> commercial publishing houses convert from Writer or Word into LaTeX (or something) and then perhaps 
> reapply formatting.  Kerning is the least of the problems when you look at a document created in 
> Word.  Even so-called Desktop Publishing tools such as Publisher tend to mangle things quite badly. 
>  The quality of documents created with Writer is far far higher but it's still unlikely to compete 
> with proper DTP tools such as LaTeX.
>
> As a work-around it might be worth trying out a few different fonts and see which bothers you the 
> least.  Most people don't notice the other prolific problems created by MSO, let alone kerning or 
> other spacing issues.
>
> It is always possible that someone on this list has some clever way of dealing with kerning or even avoiding 
> it.  I have a feeling there is a way so poking around in the "Format" menu might be useful.  So, i 
> really am hoping we do get a better answer here
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
>
>
> > ________________________________
> > From: e-letter <inpost@gmail.com>
> > To: users <users@global.libreoffice.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, 5 February 2013, 8:13
> > Subject: [libreoffice-users] character kerning
> >
> > Readers,
> >
> > The classic text 'lorem ipsum...' shows how kerning of characters in
> > writer is poor (compared to LaTeX anyway):
> >
> > Lorem ipsum dolor sit _amet_, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
> > eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad
> > _minim_ _veniam_, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
> > aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
> > reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
> > pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
> > culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
> >
> > If the text above is copied into writer, for a font such as
> > 'liberation serif', examples of poor character kerning are indicated
> > by the underscore (_) character.
> >
> > Any way to improve this?
> >
> > --
> > LO35413
> >
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