No kerning in Office

Glyphs
21

So I managed to get the font to work in Word for Mac by cleaning up the paths even more.

But it still can’t view kerning in windows environment.

I tried FontVal and aren’t getting any noticeable errors, but I’m not that familiar with the backend of fonts.

Vista
Word 2003 (11.8402.8403)

22

Hey GeorgeSeifert and mekkablue,

An update on the kerning issue:
I erased all kerning data and started over with kerning in the glyphs file.

So now it works in Word (15.9.1). However, the kerning still doesn’t work in Powerpoint (15.19.1)

I tested with both otf and ttf exported from Glyphs 2.3 (OSX 10.11.4)

Kerning works fine in Adobe CC, Safari, Firefox and Chrome.

Hope you can help

23

Does PowerPoint support GPOS kerning in the first place?

You may need to flatten kerning with the Write Kern Table parameter in 2.3. See the blogpost.

24

Thank you, mekkablue.

I am running Glyphs 2.3 (895) on OSX 10.11.4, but I can’t seem to find the custom parameter ‘Write Kern Table’.

I have added a custom parameter and I have been looking through the drop down menu in both ‘Font’, ‘Masters’ and ‘Instances’. Is it missing?

I don’t know if PowerPoint support GPOS kerning.

25

It is in the Instances tab. Add a parameter, and start writing Write and it should autocomplete. Only works if your kerning is small enough.

26

In the instances tab I added a parameter and started writing ‘Write’, but nothing appears. The typeface has 2 masters and 1190 kerning pairs. Is that the reason why nothing appears? Or could something else be wrong?

Best,
Torsten.

27

Possibly a bug. Copy and paste this into the parameters:

(
        {
        "Write Kern Table" = 1;
    }
)

If that also contains group kerning, it is most definitely too much for the kern table.

Perhaps make a duplicate of your .glyphs file, run the Expand Kerning script from Tim Ahrens’ Scripts repository, and then sort out the kern pairs in Window > Kerning. Try to get it below 2000 pairs.

28

Please do nto spend to much time on the kern table. Office does support GPOS kerning, you only need to make it work :wink:

29

I just had the same problem with a display typeface with only around 150 kerning pairs. The kerning didn’t work in PP (Office 365). So I removed all kerning and startet at one kerning pair (that worked in PP), and then added kerning pairs until it stopped working, I ended at 44 kerning pairs, that was as high I could get…

It just seems so random.

*Glyphs Version 2.3 (895)
*Office 365 (PowerPoint)

30

Take a look at what the Font Validator says. The problem may be elsewhere.

31

My recommendation is to open up the exported TTF in FontLab and actually look if all kerning pairs was exported correctly. I recently had a nightmare with a custom typeface. It appears the kerning exported from Glyphs – or the importing of kerning to FontLab – is not 100% trustable.

Anyway, in the end I managed to make fonts in TrueType-format that worked in all Office applications (if the user activates kerning in Word). I used FontLab to write the ”old-style” kerning table. But, it seems as if the kerning pairs in a kern table can not exceed the 10920 limit (when expanded). If it does, some kerning pairs seems to be not working in Office.

32

Beware – the kerning import may be even less reliable. While I re-open fonts in FontLab a lot for all kinds of testing, comparison and debugging, I generally don’t assume that the kerning I see in FontLab is exactly what was in the font’s kerning.

Also, it seems the internal kerning model with respect to classes and exceptions is somewhat different between FontLab and Glyphs. Maybe that’s the reason for some (accidental) fixes by re-exporting from FontLab?

33

This issue and specially the recommendations seems to go in circles, nothing really useful in this thread yet, only random personal hacks, that maybe work in some cases.

While I find it to be a pretty big issue I’m curious to know if the issue is being addressed or we just have to live with it and hope for the best?

34

Hello again. I am about to restart this Office-kerning-error discussion since I have new inputs.

It is still very rare that fonts exported from Glyphs App (also 2.4) works well in Microsoft Office, no kerning. And yes, the Office software is NOT well-made, I know, but some clients are all into PowerPoint :-/

The latests fonts I have designed I have exported from Glyphs (.otf) and afterwards I have opened the .otf in the newest test-version(free) of FontLab VI, and then exported .ttf from there, without changing anything, just open and export.

And magically the fonts works very well in Office, kerning and all. So I guess that this is going to be my work flow when designing typefaces for clients that are using Office, until the FontLab part is no longer necessary, when Glyphs export well to Office.

35

PowerPoint cannot read OpenType GSUB and GPOS tables. What FontLab probably does, is export part of the kerning information in an old-style kern table. Glyphs can do that too, with the Write Kern Table parameter, see the handbook on page 203.

Word users need to activate OpenType in right-click > Font… > Advanced.

36

I will definitely try Write Kern Table, hopefully it’ll do the trick, thank you!

37

@mekkablue The Write Kern Table parameter is not an option in the custom parameter box, it is there I have to write it, right?

38

The usage of the parameter is not recommended and only to be used if really needed. So we dis-promote it by not showing it in the list.

39

And it is really needed when a client uses PP and Word, and the Write Kern Table parameter worked :slight_smile: Thanks

40

Hi everyone,

Yes – When adding the custom parameter ‘Write Kern Table’, kerning in Office Word (v.15.19.1) on OSX (10.11.6) works : )

However, it only works when exporting as TTF (Glyphs 2.4). Not OTF. Is that a bug?

Best,
Torsten.