Hello-
I’ve been working on some fonts for my job and am having trouble with the kerning. I use auto-kern and then go in and adjust as needed manually. I can’t seem to get anything I do to the numbers to carry over when I test the font in InDesign or Word. I save in FontCreator, un-install, re-install, turn on the “kerning for fonts ____ pts and above” feature in Word, and nothing works. I am not really sure what I’m doing anyway, as I have no experience with font creation/editing, much less this software, but I have to get this done. 
Can anyone help?
Do you see a list of kerning pairs in the Manual Kerning dialogue (Format, Kerning) like this dialogue below?
Yes, I see the kerning pairs in the window. That’s where I do all the adjustments, which sometimes don’t seem to stick. I also noticed that the auto kern has left out some pretty common problem pairs, like AV and WA before. Is that normal? Thanks for your quick reply!
With Autokern, you can import kerning pairs from a file, or select kerning pairs manually. Whether pairs get generated or not depends on how much white space exists between those letter pairs, and on the value set for white space. Experiment with different values and see how the number of new pairs changes.
Import from file is the easiest, but manual kerning is recommended afterwards to adjust individual pairs. Autokern is a quick and dirty approach that works OK for some pairs and not so well for others.
It is also very much a matter of personal taste how tightly you like pairs to be kerned.
Manual adjustment with the keyboard is fastest. Click on the above graphic for details.
Manul kerning pairs will be over written if you run Autokern again. You can opt to add new pairs to existing pairs though.
Do spend some time familiarising yourself with the different options before spending hours doing manual kerning only to lose all of your work through not understanding the process.
You can check the effect of kerning in the Preview Toolbar ( F8 ).
I don’t know if this will do it, but I have a vague recollection that something like this was once solved by rebooting the computer after the re-install.
I hope that this helps.
William Overington
26 August 2008
The following post about the naming of font files might be helpful.
http://forum.high-logic.com:9080/t/2-more-newbie-how-to-questions/959/2
Also, the following post about keeping a diary when making a font will hopefully be useful too.
http://forum.high-logic.com:9080/t/2-more-newbie-how-to-questions/959/4
William Overington
27 August 2008
Thank you for your replies. I rebooted my computer, and the font is still the same. I tested the font in InDesign with the FC test window open, and it actually looked worse than when I install without the test window. The numbers all pile up on each other. I also noticed that in the kerning window, the numbers only have the dotted line going down the left side, where all other characters have them on both sides. Could this be part of the problem?
Where do I get a file to import kerning pairs from?
It sounds like your numbers have no side-bearings. Opn one of the digits in the glyph edit window, and press Alter Enter to open the glyph properties window. If the advance width is zero, then that is the cause of your problem.
Where do I get a file to import kerning pairs from?
When you start the Autokern Wizard, there is a radio box where you can choose “Import kerning pairs from file.” When you click “Next” the kern_standard.txt file has already been selected. Click on … if you want to choose another text file such as kern_extended.txt. Then run the wizard.
On the manual kerning dialogue, you can also import a list of kerning pairs from a file. If you already exported a text file from another font, say the regular typestyle of your font, then you can import it for the bold typestyle. There is no need to duplicate the work that you already did for the regular typestyle. These text files will be saved in FontCreator’s Application Data directory by default.
You’re right, some how I ended up with no side bearings on my numbers. I fixed that and it’s looking better. I experimented with the kerning pairs files. My fonts have about 50-100 characters each, and the file gives me about 90 pairs. Is that normal? If you don’t manually kern the non-paired characters, does it just set them up according to how much white space is on each side? Before I would have it make pairs of all the characters and it would be thousands. Is it normal to have thousands of pairs to manually kern, or is that because I’m new at this? 
Do take a close look at preinstalled fonts to see how they are kerned.
Before you start thinking about kerning, make sure you are satisfied with the left and right side bearings of all your glyphs. That is the basis, if that’s wrong you’ll have to add way more kerning pairs to compensate it.
If you don’t add kerned pairs they won’t be kerned.
Before I would have it make pairs of all the characters and it would be thousands. Is it normal to have thousands of pairs to manually kern, or is that because I’m new at this? >
If you select just the sixty-two 0-9, A-Z and a-z glyphs in the Autokern wizard it will check the white space between all combinations = 3,782 pairs to see if it exceeds the value you selected in the Wizard. If it does, it will add a kerning pair, even for very unlikely pairs like qT.
A test using those sixty-two glyphs with my font resulted in 1,080 pairs with white space set to 200. Reducing that whitespace to 150 (tigher kerning) increased the kerning pairs to 1,728. Using the kern_standard.txt file resulted in just 185 pairs including many accented pairs. That is because the kern_standard.txt file does not include all possible combinations.
Hi, I’ve got same problem with kerning.
Sorry for mistakes, I’m from Poland and my English isn’t perfect. 
I create kerning pairs in FontCreator, it’s ok, when I look in preview box (under F8). Kerning is perfect there.
But when I save my font and put it in /Windows/Fonts/ and try it in Word, Paint etc. - there’s no kerning.
What should I do?
Thanks!
MS Paint doesn’t support kerning as far as I know. Word does, but it is not on by default. See this thread
Thanks for reply, but… my MS Word and Paint support kerning - I can see it using another fonts. But my own doesn’t work.
You can attach your font here for me to test.
Okay. You can find all in attachments.
The kerning works fine in PagePlus and OpenOffice. There isomething wrong with your installation of the font. Perhaps you installed the unkerned version first, then tried to install the kerned version.
Try uninstalling the font, reinstalling it, then, if necessary, reboot.
Oh, I did it so many times 
I don’t install fonts by FontCreator - I save it on desktop, then copy into “Fonts” folder.
But if it works fine in your programms, it’s ok. Thank you very much for checking it!
Did you enable kerning for the particular text inside Word?