By default, all glyphs are automatically spaced & kerned in Fontself on iPad.
The goal is to define a harmonious rhythm of space between letters and words, first globally, and then by fixing inharmonious spaces.
The amount of horizontal space between two glyphs (the spacing) is defined by the sum of the spaces around each glyph (their left and right side bearing), plus an eventual correction to fix problematic cases (the kerning).
Manual Editing
To fine-tune your glyph metrics, start from the Font Settings (top-right wrench icon) and tap the Spacing or Kerning button.
Spacing
Spend a great amount of care to balance the spacing of your font, as it will not only result in a more legible typeface, but this will also prevent many kerning issues.
The Spacing view
This view includes 2 different parts:
The Spacing Pad - an editable text preview at the top - where you can interactively edit horizontal metrics values for each glyph.
The Proofing View - an editable text preview at the bottom - to see the impact of your changes on a set of predefined texts including common spacing phrases.
Manual Spacing 101
A traditional approach to this task is to start looking at a couple glyphs that serve a control characters to define a rhythm with the most vertical and rounded shapes: nnnnn and ooooo for lowercase, HHHHH and OOOOO for uppercase.
In Fontself, scroll through the list in the Spacing Pad, and fit the space around all characters so they visually match the volume of space around
nnorHHThe side bearings for straight glyphs like
Hare usually bigger than those for curved letters likeO
You should really spend as much time as you can to adjust all spacing before you start working on the last part of your font editing: kerning.
Kerning
⚠️ First, MAKE SURE TO SPENT MOST EFFORTS ON SPACING to avoid having to create too many kerning pairs.
Once you've properly spaced your characters, it's time to optimize the spacing around specific pairs of characters.
The Kerning view
The view includes 2 different parts:
The Kerning Pad - an editable text preview at the top where you can also interactively edit kerning values
The Proofing View - an editable text preview at the bottom - to see the impact of your changes on a set of predefined common kerning pairs.
Manual Kerning 101
As some pairs of letters remain inharmonious as you space your glyphs, you must manually fix each pair. One approach to solve this task is to look at a common kerning pairs along with a couple other glyphs that serve a control characters to define the rhythm you want to match: like nnav for lowercase, HHAV for uppercase.
In the Kerning Pad, scroll through the list of the most common kerning pairs, click on the last letter of each word and adjust the space, so that the volume of space between the last two characters visually matches the volume of space between
nnorHH.On this screen, just mind to NOT adjust kerning between the control characters.
To create and modify kerning pairs, you can interactively move glyphs (the quick way) or edit table values (the precise way).
Potential kerning issues
Kerning pairs are missing or not showing up