Unfortunately, the original Kepler specimen book is not online anywhere, but I have unearthed this short essay from it:
Introduction
Named after the German Renaissance astronomer, Kepler is a contemporary Adobe® Originals type family created by Adobe type designer Robert Slimbach in the tradition of classic “modern” 18th-century typefaces. Traditionally, modern typefaces are known for their cool intellectual quality, but Slimbach’s Kepler captures the modern style in a humanistic manner. It is elegant and refi ned with a hint of oldstyle proportion and calligraphic detailing that lends it warmth and energy. The OpenType® version of Kepler, released in 2003, subtly improves on the earlier design, and merges the previously separate supplemental fonts into the base fonts, to provide extended typographic features.
OpenType
OpenType fonts are compact single-file cross-platform fonts, which can have extended language support based on Unicode, and enhanced typographic layout features. For OpenType information, including an OpenType User Guide, the OpenType Readme (application compatibility notes), and OpenType Specimen Book PDFs, visit Adobe’s Web site at http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype.
About optical sizes
Typefaces with optical size variants have had their designs subtly adjusted for use at specific point size ranges. This capability reintroduces one of the features of hand-cut metal type, which uses a separate font for each point size and is often optically adjusted. This is an advantage over the current common practice of scaling a single digital type design to different point sizes, which may reduce legibility at smaller sizes or sacrifice subtlety at larger sizes.
The objective of optical sizing is to maintain the integrity and legibility of the underlying typeface design throughout a range of point sizes. The adjustments typically made to the design to optimize it for different sizes are: for larger point sizes, the space between characters (letter fit) tightens, the
space within characters (counterforms) closes up (i.e., the letters are slightly more condensed), the serifs become fi ner and the stroke contrast becomes greater, the overall weight becomes lighter, and the x-height gradually diminishes; for smaller point sizes, opposite adjustments are made.
Smaller optical sizes are also useful when output resolution is very limited, such as for on-screen display. One might choose to use a smaller optical size design for creating text on buttons for a Web page, for example.
These adjustments can improve the legibility of intermediate point sizes further if there is a greater change in design at smaller sizes than at larger sizes. For example, the difference in design between the Caption and Regular optical
sizes, which may have a difference in size of only 4 points, is almost as much as the difference between the regular and display sizes, which have a difference of 10-60 points.
Although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the optical designs of this family are:
Caption: 6–8.9 point
Regular: 9–13.9 point
Subhead: 14–23.9 point
Display: 24+ point
OpenType feature highlights:
The most prominent OpenType layout features in this typeface are: small caps, oldstyle and lining figures in proportional and tabular widths, ornaments, swash caps (in the italics only), standard and discretionary ligatures, fractions, case forms and “all alternates.” Note that the choice of which OpenType features are supported is specific to each application.
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