Font Typesetting Function 05: “[Narrowed Spacing Between Characters] in Adobe Applications”

There is a function called [Narrowed Spacing Between Characters] in InDesign/Illustrator. While tracking explained in the previous entry is narrowing the spacing between characters evenly, the amount of the narrowed spacing between characters differs per character in [Narrowed Spacing Between Characters].

[Narrowed Spacing Between Characters] is specified by percentage, which means “how much percentage of side bearing is removed?” For example, specifying 100% at [Narrowed Spacing Between Characters] completely removes the side bearing. This is a situation in which the back and forth characters and the bounding box are tightly in contact.

As its name is [Narrowed Spacing Between Characters], when I was getting started with InDesign, I tried using it as a means to achieve typesetting with narrowed spacing between characters, but this did not work very well. As it also removes the side bearing of Latin designed originally in proportion, Latin is over-narrowed when settings are adjusted in accordance with Kana.

So, which function should be used for narrowed spacing between characters? My recommendation is [Proportional Metrics] and [Kerning (Metrics)]. I will discuss further details in the continuation of this series.

(mm)