Vertical Kerning - Handscript

hy there
I’m working on a scriptfont and ask me how I can move a glyph in a special combination a bit higher or lower.

as example:
I have a T H where the T bar is touching the left side of the H. When I have the T O i have an stupid small white line between the T and O. I can arrange them with the kerning together or beside to get clear shapes. but in this case the space between the T O is to big or to small.

because it is a script font without one baseline and fix character heights, I can easy put the O 20 units above to get in touch with the bar of the T or 20 units lower for a nice white shape between T and O without changing the horizontal kerning.

which feature tag I need (GPOS, VKRN…?), and how i have to type the feature to move the T O’ move +20 up…?

You can add a custom kern feature. It allows shift in horizontal but also vertical direction. About the details: https://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype/afdko/topic_feature_file_syntax.html#6

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  1. GPOS is the name of the table, not the feature. If you move a glyph, it will go into GPOS automatically.
  2. Read the Kerning and Contextual Kerning tutorials:
    https://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/kerning
    https://www.glyphsapp.com/tutorials/contextual-kerning

What you need for vertical shifting is the full notation: pos x' <10 20 30 0> y; will move x, if it comes before y, 10 to the right and 20 up, and then advance 30.

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thanks for feedback it seems to me like no big thing, but something doesn’t working right.

for me its hard to find the right lookup type from the adobe link, its to much for me…

with the contextual kerning tutorial I can follow, but there is no reaction in my font when I create the same KERN feature with same content. also no reaction when i add a GPOS feature with the same code which you posted. when i know where my bug is, I think I can work with the position tag like you said.

or is there a problem with the GPOS preview which glyphs can’t preview in the edit view?

what is exactly is a table, how i have to move a glyph if the GPOS get automatically created?

There is no preview inside Glyphs for manually added GPOS features. You need to work wth the Adobe Fonts Folder: Testing your fonts in Adobe apps | Glyphs

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Any plans to preview manually written kern features?