Kerning Groups

Kerning groups

When you need to kern many similar glyphs at once, like A, À , Â  and Á , you can now save much time by linking the kerning values of all accented glyphs to a single one, like the original A. 

So once you have kerned the two pairs AV and VA , all the other pairs like ÀV, ÂV, ÁV and  VÀ, VÂ, VÁ will be automatically created. How cool is that? 😀

Now how about linking only the left sides of your C , G and Q with the kerning values from your O - but only when it's the second letter of a kerning pair, like VO ?

Well, kerning groups can also be used to constrain a single side of glyphs. For instance, you can link all kerning values related to the left side of the glyph Æ  to the pairs ending with an A, like TA or VA , so you don't have to kern TÆ or VÆ .

Create kerning groups

The kerning table now contains 2 tabs, one for Pairs and one for Groups.

We recommend to start creating your kerning groups before making kerning pairs in order to avoid duplicate work.

• A kerning group is created when you assign a specific character (the group master) to the left side or the right side of another glyph, based on their shapes' similarity.

• A kerning group starts having an impact when you create a new kerning pair (the master pair) that involves the master character.

• All the group members will then get the same kerning value, and you can view all the sibling pairs that have been generated by clicking on the + sign on the left side of a master pair.

In other words, you can tell Fontself that the left or right side of a glyph should get the same kerning value as another character, thus leading to precise adjustments.

Kerning group exceptions

If you need to apply a different value for a specific kerning pair that is part of a group, you can unlink the value from the master pair by clicking on the lock icon:

Ok, so which groups to create?

Well, that will highly depend on the design of your typeface, but here are a few tips.

Pairing with a rounded group master

Left side
O: C G Q
o: c d e g q

Right side
O: D Q
o: b p

Pairing with accented characters

For capitals, the grouping can be pretty straightforward:

Left side
A: Æ Á Â Ä À Å Ã

Right side
A: Á Â Ä À Å Ã
E: Æ

Due to kerning issues with lowercase accented characters - like Ta  and Tä - you might have to split a group in two, with the non-accented character like a serving as a first group master, and an accented character like ä  as a second master for the accented lowercase characters.

Left side
a: æ
ä: á â ä à å ã

Right side
ä: á â ä à å ã
e: æ

Want to learn more? Check these great resources!

• Simple visual explanation on TheTypeWorkshop

• Detailed explanations on DesignShack

• The Kerning Game by Method of Action