[XeTeX] weird kerning with GFS Didot's italic face

[Jonathan Kew]

On 6 Jul 2006, at 8:23 pm, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:

> William Adams wrote:
>> On Jul 6, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:
>>
>>> I used Word 2000 in Windows 2000. Probably it doesn't use GPOS
>>> kerning.
>>
>> Word's kerning support has always been wildly variable, on-again off
>> again.
>>
>> If memory serves, 2.0 didn't do kerning, 2.0a kerned Type 1 but not
>> TrueType, 2.0b kerned TrueType but not Type 1 and 2.0c went back to
>> not kerning.
>
> Is there no way to switch GPOS kerning for a concrete font (or for all
> fonts in a document) using fontspec or XeTeX?

It's enabled by default (if present in the font); you can disable it  
by specifying the "-kern" tag in the \font declaration, thus:

	\font\nokerndidot = "GFS Didot:-kern" at 12pt

Fontspec doesn't seem to have a predefined option for this (how about  
it, Will?!), but you can declare one; I think the form would be  
something like this (untested):

	\newfontfeature{NoKerning}{-kern}
	\setromanfont[NoKerning]{GFS Didot}

(or whatever the correct family name is....)

JK