Optical or Metrics in Indesign?

[budafist]

For tracking in Indesign, I use Metrics by default.

Is anyone use Optical?

I notice that with Gill Sans, the capital A has very tight kerning when placed after a period . in Metrics, but it looks good when I set it to Optical. I do like Gill Sans, but what is that A kerned like that? It's infuriating!

[garricks]

hewligan explained it all wonderfully to me HERE (http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34498&highlight=optical+metrics). :D

[budafist]

I posted in that thread too!

[The_Black_Knight]

For headlines, I will often use optical if for some reason I am unhappy with metrics. I'll try setting the text both ways, and whichever setting will require less manual kerning is the one I'll go with. It depends on the font and the job at hand.

For body copy, I usually use metrics. This is partly because a) good quality fonts are usually already kerned for body copy size, 2) at smaller sizes many kerning problems are less obvious than if they were in a headline, and finally, n-1) setting large blocks or multiple pages of text to optical will really slow down your screen redraw, because the software has to analyze all of the letters to determine how the kerning should look.

Of course, I have to always use optical kerning with Gill Sans, because some font designer had to get all quirky with the stupid capital A after a space.

What the heck were you thinking, Gill? Really, were you stoned when you came up with that, or something? I mean, you came up with these beautiful, distinctive letter shapes, and then tossed in that little touch that makes the font darn near unusable. Oh, that and the "1"s look too much like lower case "L"s, which makes using numerals impossible with Gill Sans, too.

[budafist]

Of course, I have to always use optical kerning with Gill Sans, because some font designer had to get all quirky with the stupid capital A after a space.

What the heck were you thinking, Gill? Really, were you stoned when you came up with that, or something? I mean, you came up with these beautiful, distinctive letter shapes, and then tossed in that little touch that makes the font darn near unusable. Oh, that and the "1"s look too much like lower case "L"s, which makes using numerals impossible with Gill Sans, too.

"After the initial shock, […] as Gill's history of adulteries, incest, and experimental connection with his dog became public knowledge in the late 1980s,

I guess after a dog and some incest, the space before a capital A was the least of his worries.

[urstwile]

I mostly do what Black Knight does, and oddly, have also found that with Gill Sans, the Optical setting is the best one. It helps with the numeral one issue as well, otherwise there's a mile of space between the one and the other numbers.

I suspect the bad metrics in that font are a relic of its digitization as opposed to the font designer screwing it up. They've probably got the right character shoulder for the character spaced negatively, or the left shoulder of the period, or some funky kern combo in there perhaps. I've seen this with some of the other earlier digitized fonts, I don't recall it being a problem when I was using it in non-digital form.

[The_Black_Knight]

I suspect the bad metrics in that font are a relic of its digitization as opposed to the font designer screwing it up. They've probably got the right character shoulder for the character spaced negatively, or the left shoulder of the period, or some funky kern combo in there perhaps. I've seen this with some of the other earlier digitized fonts, I don't recall it being a problem when I was using it in non-digital form.

Sure, ruin my rant with a well-balanced, reasonable explanation, why don'tcha? :D

[urstwile]

Sorry. :D

I used to use Fontographer a lot, and I noticed it on quite a number of fonts that you'd think would be in better shape. Mostly the early classics, Gill Sans among them.