Microtypography

Micro-typography is the art of enhancing the appearance and readability of a document while exhibiting a minimum degree of visual obtrusion.

Whereas the macro-typographical aspects of a document (i.e., its layout) are clearly visible even to the untrained eye, micro-typographical refinements should ideally not even be recognisable.

As of June 2022[update], pdfTeX is not fully compatible with XeTeX, an extension of TeX that makes it easier to use many typographic features of OpenType fonts (in 2010, support for protrusion was added to it.[10]).

pdfTeX is almost fully supported (except for the adjustment of interword spacing and of kerning) with LuaTeX, yet another extension of TeX which offers all of the benefits of XeTeX (and some others).

Robin Williams suggests methods for achieving protrusion with word processors and desktop publishing packages that do not make it directly available.

Three images of a paragraph from The Red Badge of Courage ( Stephen Crane , 1895) to illustrate kerning, ligatures, hyphenation and microtypography (expansion/protrusion). Top: none; middle: kerning/ligatures/hyphens; bottom: all.