Was looking through various scripts and shortcuts, but haven’t found yet…
Is there an action, text input, or toggle that can be used to kern both sides of a symmetrical glyph at once?
So if I’m kerning the left side of –V … can the right side V– (that is a mirror scenario) be automatically kerned as well, without needing to move my fingers to the option/cmd shortcut to manually kern it to the same values?
You probably mean spacing, not kerning.
You put the =| metrics key in the right sidebearing. You can update it with Glyph > Update Metrics. See the Spacing tutorial for more details and tricks.
There are scripts for batch-setting.
Thanks Rainer… actually did mean kerning.
I indeed used the =| input for some of my spacing already — a helpful option.
Basically just wondering if there is a little quicker shortcut to kerning those symmetrical glyph pairings, so that each side responds equally, at the same time.
(The ctrl and cmd / option shortcut works well overall… maybe overthinking it, but when kerning *A* etc, it might help)
There’s a mekkablue script that finds uneven symmetrical kerning, but that doesn’t copy the kerning, as far as I know.
That is a handy script, and do use it too for reviewing, thanks.
Kind of thinking something like holding down some kind of key combo at once that when the cursor is on either side of the OTO etc, it makes both sides respond at same time equally.
e.g. Opt / Z / Shift , or whatever makes sense. Can that be scripted? Not super savvy.
That’s a bit tricky, many variables and ambiguous cases in terms of behaviour.
I would rather take the mentioned script as a basis and write a script that copies one kerning pair (from one side, which?) to the other in all selected kerning pairs (which you print using the mentioned script).
If you are a little bit familiar with scripting, this is actually a great entry-level scripting project.
You can either use Font.kerning directly (a bit tedious), or GSLayer.setNextKerning_forLayer_direction_() and related methods.
The mekkablue script Method Reporter will let you explore all kinds of relevant methods.
Appreciate this feedback and suggestions, Sebastian. Yeah, that might be a good project to explore : ) Thanks for the tips to point me to some ideas.
Ctrl-Opt-Shift-arrows and then the same with Cmd-Opt-Shift-arrows. The point is that it needs to look the same but I’ve had so many cases where I thought it would be the same but it ended up with a difference. AVA what VA looks further apart than AV because of the ever so slight stroke contrast.
That’s why the script gives you a predefined list.
True. I do run into that as well, also with glyphs like X etc, as that typical little extra width at the bottom throws off perfect kerning symmetry a little (so needs manually decided for each side).
If worth it at all, guess it would only apply to a handful in some cases (e.g. -T-), or with a low, or near monoline contrast design.
I’ve made a macro and assigned it to a shortcut that switches the current left and right glyphs in the edit view. So it’s easier to kern (nearly) symmetric pairs consistently, but it’s still a manual process.
Interesting Jens. Is it possibly something that is public or just personal? No pressure.