Arguably, there is no algorithmic way to compute high-quality kerning based on character shapes (just as there's no way to determine, say, character width just

Arguably, there is no algorithmic way to compute high-quality kerning based on character shapes (just as there's no way to determine, say, character width just from an outline). If there were, then Apple would build it into MacOS and iOS, and Microsoft would build it into Windows, and Google would build it into Android, and then all applications from TextEdit to Word, Safari to Chrome, and troff to TeX would automatically get told about these synthetic kerning pairs, and use them by default. That said, Adobe does have a proprietary optical kerning scheme that they use in their applications. But it's turned off by default (hint, hint), and their documentation is a bit defensive about it: "Optical kerning adjusts the spacing between adjacent characters based on their shapes, and is optimized for use with Roman glyphs. Some fonts include robust kern-pair specifications. However, when a font includes only minimal built-in kerning or none at all, or if you use two different typefaces or sizes in one or more words on a line, you may want to use the optical kerning option for the Roman text in your document." Loosely translated: Fonts from real type foundries have kerning pairs carefully created by their designers; if you have slap-dash one where they didn't bother, we'll do the best we can if you want. YMMV.