Participant

Question

Kerning default value

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 21, 2022
3 replies
748 views

Hello,

Two questions concerning typographical options in the Adobe software.

Why is Character > Kerning set to 'auto' by default in Adobe software like Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign, and why there is no option to change this setting in the Preferences?

Looking forward to hear from you,

Laïc: Type Foundry

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michelew83603738

Community Expert

Generally you would want the kerning that the font designer thought best be used in paragraphs which is what auto gives you. However you can override this Character Style Panel.

Laïc:TypeAuthor

Participant

@michelew83603738
This is exactly why I ask – my experience is different. Auto is not reading the kerning properly, sometimes.
@Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Interesting. The third option seems to be more coherent with our kerning values – compared to those in the font editing software while the "Auto" option outputs weird font spacing.
@Doug A Roberts
Thanks, will look up this option for different os.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

"This is exactly why I ask – my experience is different. Auto is not reading the kerning properly, sometimes."

Does the same thing occur in InDesign using "Metrics"?

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Why do you want to?

"Auto" in Illustrator essentially means "Metrics", i.e. it will use the kerning data designed within the font.

"Optical" overrides this internal data and kerns the way Illustrator sees fit. This may be good on a case by case basis, but I certainly wouldn't want it to be my default for any reason.

(The third option is mostly for, say, Japanese fonts, and doesn't bear much on anything else)

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

It is set to Auto in the 'Normal Character Style' in Illustrator document profiles.

If you want to set it to something else, you need to open the document profile you want to change (or indeed all of them), edit the normal character style, and save.

Document profiles (on Windows) are found here:

Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 27 Settings\en_GB\x64\New Document Profiles

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