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_daveydave_
Participant
Sep 23, 2008 1:43 AM UTC
Question

Optical Vs. Metric Kerning

What are the differences are between "Optical" and "Metric" kerning in InDesign? In what cases would you use one more than the other - is there a hard rule to when you would select either? Or is it just personal preference? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

D

      58 replies

      Frank Grießhammer
      Adobe Employee
      Frank Grießhammer
      Adobe Employee
      Jan 19, 2022 11:59 AM UTC

      I realize this is a 14-year old thread, my response is for anyone having the same question in the future:

       

      Optical vs Metric is not a choice between two equals. In short:

      - Metric kerning refers to the kerning built into the font, i.e. as intended by the font developer.

      - Optical kerning ignores all kerning in the font and hands over all control of spacing/kerning to InDesign.

       

      When working with professionally-produced fonts, Optical kerning should never be necessary. As mentioned earlier in this thread, Optical will do harm when it comes to connected script fonts, tabular figures, monospaced fonts, etc.
      Optical should really only be a last resort – for example in case you have an unkerned font to work with.

       

      In most cases, Metric kerning is preferable.

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      Frans v.d. Geest
      Community Expert
      Frans v.d. GeestCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Mar 25, 2020 1:16 PM UTC

      Big problem with Optical if you use Tabular number figures, those should be mono-spaced of course, optical destroys that.

      I use metric, as the font was designed. Optical once in a while for big headlines on big posters, maybe...

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      Axminster Crash
      Participant
      Mar 25, 2020 1:19 PM UTC

      Good point.

      Particularly with fonts like Gotham where the figures are already kerned in the metrics. A report & Account doc becomes useless.

      But some fonts eg. Bembo type RAILWAY in caps and the metrics are awful. Optical is still bad, but less so.

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      Axminster Crash
      Participant
      Mar 25, 2020 12:20 PM UTC

      Optical for most but not for script fonts

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      Mr. Met
      Mr. Met
      Inspiring
      Jan 1, 2009 8:58 PM UTC
      Messing with fonts to achieve an aesthetic end is fine. The overall feel I'm getting is that all professionally designed and tested fonts are all wrong which is ludicrous. I kern and scale type too but rarely on long body text runs. Headlines, pull quotes, captions, footers and headers and similar short text blocks that I want to punch up are where I do most of my manipulation. I doubt I would ever scale a body font to 99% for an entire book.
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      Jongware
      Community Expert
      JongwareCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      Dec 27, 2008 12:14 AM UTC
      >I like $s as guide. If Ive spent $500-$1000 on a text family metrics start to look really good.

      There is the solution for font developers: just price more, and the client will assume it's
      i supposed
      to look that way :-D

      (It explains why Minion Pro has such bad kerning in, for example, French contractions: "L'Ascencion" kerns the 'L' and 'A' all the way up to eachother. It's a possible explanation because I got Minion for free.)
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      _rob_day_
      Participating Frequently
      Dec 26, 2008 6:55 PM UTC
      >has finally made it to the slippery slope of personal aesthetics,

      I like $s as guide. If Ive spent $500-$1000 on a text family metrics start to look really good.
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      Vernox
      Inspiring
      Dec 26, 2008 5:09 PM UTC
      Good, the discussion has finally made it to the slippery slope of personal aesthetics, where it belongs. Now we are all on equally unstable footing.

      Though I might point out that if, in fact, "looking good" is a personal choice alone then there isn't much point in art or design schools. Just roll your own and be done with it!

      Yours
      Vern
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      _Dave_Saunders_
      Inspiring
      Dec 24, 2008 5:28 PM UTC
      Richard,

      No. My use of it is primarily driven by the fact that it works universally and not just selectively. That, to my mind, is the main problem with metrics. There are only so many metrics included in each font.

      Dave
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      Fred Goldman
      Inspiring
      Dec 24, 2008 6:56 PM UTC
      I really think this is a moot argument. Just as position of text frames,
      columns, etc. belong to the designer, so too the way he decides to kern
      the type. What's the difference if the type designer wanted it to look
      differently? And if I scale type by 1-2% because I think it looks better
      am I doing something illegal?

      The main thing is that it "looks good" and looking good, as always, has
      different definitions depending on the designer.
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      _Peter_Truskier_
      Participating Frequently
      Dec 24, 2008 5:16 PM UTC
      >because they actually intended that it work that way!

      Not only that, but there is at least one engineer interested in defending each of them :-)
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      Mr. Met
      Mr. Met
      Inspiring
      Dec 24, 2008 4:43 PM UTC
      If you're using optical kerning universally you're implying that every font is poorly designed which is a load of bs.
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