converting to ditroff (or sex with laser printers!)

[Intergalactic Psychic Police Of Uranus]

> In trying to create font description as
> used by makedev, I've run across a parameter which I have no clue about.
> Does anyone know what a "kern" is?  It has something to do with...well, let
> me just let you see what it says here:
> 
> (from makdev.c)
> 
> 	DESC.out contains:
> 	dev structure with fundamental sizes
> 	list of sizes (nsizes+1) terminated by 0, as short's
> 	indices of char names (nchtab * sizeof(short))
> 	char names as hy\0em\0... (lchname)
> 	nfonts occurrences of
> 		widths (nwidth)
> -->>>>>>	kerning (nwidth) [ascender+descender only so far]
> 		codes (nwidth) to drive actual typesetter
> 		fitab (nchtab+128-32)
> 	each of these is an array of char.

kerning is used to press letters close to each other...as in 'Ac'...
that is the right leg of 'A' is allowed to fall underneath the gentle
curve of 'c's buttocks...This is known as side-by-side kerning, but
has a better name in French.  In the case of 'ascender+descender' kerning
the tops portions of letters, the heads, are allowed to amorously delve
into the tails, the 'descenders', of the letters above; simply put,
the letter 'p' on top of the letter 'l'.  Thus, what is wanted is the
length of your ascender and descender, for each font.  Nu?