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I mean the pairwise spacing preventing strange spaces between pairs like AV described here. It's Wikipedia page claims that it does, but my tests don't show any kerning at all.

I am running version 5.9.156.

halfer
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johjoh
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  • From the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCPDF), apparently yes. – halfer Jun 13 '12 at 16:31
  • Yes I read this ... but for me it seems like they don't use the term correctly. – johjoh Jun 13 '12 at 19:14
  • Are you therefore looking for an alternative PDF generating approach in PHP that supports kerning? If so, briefly describe your use case, and perhaps someone can advise you. – halfer Jun 13 '12 at 20:02
  • For my current project it's ok. But for the future it would be great to have this feature. My usecase was a script to generate signs for a guidance system of a library, which shell be updateable by the client. The only free library I found is [xmlroff](http://www.xmlroff.org/) ... but I didn't test it. – johjoh Jun 14 '12 at 09:27
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    Consider a reporting-based solution, like Jasper+iReport (requires the set-up of a Java-based server, but can be accessed in PHP via SOAP). Or maybe use SVG files and an XML-based template system, and render with Inkscape server-side. I've done both with success, and I'm pretty sure both do kerning. – halfer Jun 14 '12 at 09:44
  • Thanks for the hint! Will keep that in mind. Didn't know that Inkscape is commandline accessible ... good to know! – johjoh Jun 14 '12 at 12:02
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    Yep, [see here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/10300498/472495). – halfer Jun 14 '12 at 12:09

1 Answers1

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No. I tested typical pairs like "AV", "AW" and "T," which should have reduced spacing with several different fonts, but unfortunatly couldn't see any kerning.

Version of TCPDF: 5.9.156

johjoh
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  • Would this not depend on the TTF definition rather than TCPDF itself? – DaveRandom Jun 13 '12 at 12:01
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    I would have guessed so, but apparently not. I imported the "Georgia", that's installed on my system and is kerned when used in OpenOffice for example. I also tried "times" and "dejavusans" coming with TCPDF. I also found [this thread](http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug/browse_thread/thread/32560807e66e53d0), suggesting that there is no free PDF library that supports kerning (but it is from 2009). But while googling around I found "xmlroff", an XSL to PDF converter, which [supports kerning](http://xmlroff.sourceforge.net/examples/kerning/index.html). – johjoh Jun 13 '12 at 14:05
  • TCPDF [Example](http://www.tcpdf.org/examples.php) number [sixty-three](http://www.tcpdf.org/examples/example_063.phps) has comments that seem to indicate that the author expects kerning to happen, but I can't detect it (by eye) in the text they used in their example. – ghoti Jun 13 '12 at 14:52
  • Yes, i know the example. But it doesn't look kerned. I'll write them. – johjoh Jun 14 '12 at 12:07