: Kerning doesn't work in Illustrator I created a custom font, and wanted to use it in Illustrator. However, some of the kerning was not working. Most of the kerning works, but there are some

@Cody3331749

Adobe and Microsoft handle kerning completly differently from each other. I haven't looked into how kerning is handled by Microsoft programs, but typically when you run into issues like this with a Microsoft program, it is because something behind the scenes in the Microsoft program is trying to fix a problem for you. A perfect example is when you are using a typeface that uses regular, demi, medium, strong, etc., instead of bold. If you have text set in regular, and you apply "bold" to it in MS Word, it will create a "bold" version of the regular typeface, rather than using one of the bolder options that exist in that typeface.

An Adobe product, on the other hand, will give you an error message, telling you that there is no "bold" option for that particular typeface, and you have to manually change it to medium or strong.

I think that @user287001 is onto something when s/he asked how you defined the kerning within the font editor you used to create a font. I think that Illustrator probably relies more on the internal kerning information than the Microsoft programs, and it may be looking for more detail than you put into your font when you created it.

I found this article that talks about the differences between Metrics and Optical kerning in Adobe products. It focuses on InDesign, but also shows examples for Illustrator. Check it out and see if it is helpful. I also suggest looking for articles that talk about how your specific version of Illustrator handles contextual controls (which include items like character alternates, ligatures, etc.). There have been quite a few changes to this functionality in recent Adobe upgrades.

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