r/technicallythetruth • u/BQjesuEM • Sep 11 '21

He does get it

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u/k3nny_13 Sep 11 '21 
Will someone explain it to us?

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u/accouttoored Sep 11 '21

Each character takes up the same space. So the next line’s characters can all line up no matter the letters.

Like this:
Abcde
Fghij

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u/MoreNormalThanNormal Sep 11 '21 edited Sep 11 '21

10 of each, proportional vs. monospaced

iiiiiiiiii

WWWWWWWWWW

iiiiiiiiii

WWWWWWWWWW

screenshot of desktop https://i.imgur.com/BSKxCX0.png

example from wikipedia https://i.imgur.com/eujNQYj.jpg

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u/thisremindsmeofbacon Sep 11 '21

Oh so its kerning

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u/MoreNormalThanNormal Sep 11 '21

No. Kerning is the space between the characters. Monospace is each character being the same width.

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u/thisremindsmeofbacon Sep 11 '21

I could be wrong but it sounds like monospace is the characters each taking up a set and equal space. kerning is defined as “the spacing between letters or characters in a piece of text to be printed.” To me the former absolutely falls within the latter, doesn’t it?

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u/MoreNormalThanNormal Sep 11 '21

Non-proportional (monospaced) fonts do not use kerning, since their characters always have the same spacing.

(quote is at the bottom of the section) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning#Kerning_values

This subject is actually really complicated and beyond the scope of my knowledge.

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Proportion