Stupid me doesn't know what kerning is. Can you explain it to me please?
Kerning is the amount of space between individual letters. Computer word-processing programs know how to put the optimal amount of space between any two letters in a way most pleasing to the human eye. Typewriters cannot do this. The Democrats are attempting to confuse people by saying that typewriters were available in the early 1970s that offered "proportional spacing." That is true, but proportional spacing is not the same thing as kerning. Kerning is proportional spacing taking up an order of magnitude, and it can only be done by hand, or by computer. Not by typewriter.
Since the documents exactly match the kerning done automatically by Microsoft Word, it is impossible that the documents were created in 1973. IMPOSSIBLE. The only explanation is that they are frauds.
A typewriter, OTOH, has no way of knowing what character has been typed previously - all it knows is what key you're striking now. Therefore, it cannot adjust the white space around the characters - every character is printed on a fixed-sized field, so they're all equally spaced apart.
Here you go. ;-)
[A]nother aspect of the type on [the August 18, 1973 memo] suggests, perhaps proves, forgery. 1. The type in the document is KERNED. Kerning is the typsetter's art of spacing various letters in such a manner that they are 'grouped' for better readability. Word processors do this automatically. NO TYPEWRITER CAN PHYSICALLY DO THIS.
To explain: the letter 'O' is curved on the outside. A letter such as 'T' has indented space under its cross bar. On a typewriter if one types an 'O' next to a 'T' then both letters remain separated by their physical space. When you type the same letters on a computer next to each other the are automatically 'kerned' or 'grouped' so that their individual spaces actually overlap. e. g., TO. As one can readily see the curvature of the 'O' nestles neatly under the cross bar of the 'T'. Two good kerning examples in the alleged memo are the word 'my' in the second line where 'm' and 'y' are neatly kerned and also the word 'not' in the fourth line where the 'o' and 't' overlap empty space. A typewriter doesn't 'know' what particular letter is next to another and can't make those types of aesthetic adjustments.
2. The kerning and proportional spacing in each of the lines of type track EXACTLY with 12 point Times Roman font on a six inch margin (left justified). Inother words, the sentences break just as they would on a computer and not as they would on a typewriter. Since the type on the memo is both proportionally spaced and kerned the lines of type break at certain instances (i.e., the last word in each line of the first paragraph are - 1. running, 2. regarding, 3. rating, 4. is, 5. either). If the memo was created on a typewriter the line breaks would be at different words (e. g., the word 'running' is at the absolute outside edge of the sentence and would probably not be on the first line).
3. The sentences have a wide variance in their AMOUNT of kerning and proportional spacing. Notice how the first line of the first paragraph seems squished together and little hard to read but the last line of the first paragraph has wider more open spacing. Even the characters themselves are squished in the first line (as a computer does automatically) and more spread out on the last line where there is more room.
There's no way a typewriter could 'set' the type in this memo and even a good typesetter using a Linotype machine of the era would have to spend hours getting this effect.
VACATION
See the space between the V and A? Kerning will tuck the A under the V to provide a smoother flow of text. Kerning would also tuck the A under the T a bit, again, to make it appear neater and make it clear to the eye that it is all one word. This has been kerned:
I worked on the school paper in college, back when we composed pages with wax machines and rollers.
"But these are minor points. Kos never addresses the smoking-gun issue of kerning. We discussed this extensively yesterday, but briefly, "kerning" is the ability of letters in word-processed documents to intrude on one another's space. If you type the word "my" in Word or any other word processing program, the tail of the "y" will curl slightly under the "m." This cannot be done on any typewriter, because a typewriter cannot know what the adjacent letter is. A letter on a typewriter must have its own space.
"The Killian memos could not have been typed on an IBM Executive typewriter with "proportional spacing" or any other typewriter using similar technology. According to product descriptions on the web, the IBM Executive typewriter supports only four different character widths. In contrast, modern proportional spacing involves a far more sophisticated type-setting algorithm. Every type font in Word (or any other modern word processing system) has a custom width for every character. Moreover, the spacing between individual pairs of characters is modified by a process called "kerning" that compensates for the fact that letters have varying shapes that affect our perception of proper spacing. To achieve an aesthetically pleasing result, the type-setting process must take into account the relationship between adjacent character shapes.
"For example, the letter "T" followed by the letter "o" looks badly spaced if the "o" is not tucked under the overhang provided by the top of the "T". On the other hand, no such adjustment is appropriate if the letter "T" is followed by the letter "H". In the Killian documents, you can clearly see the effects of kerning in pairs of letters such as "fo" and "fe". I am amazed that Dan Rather and his associates at CBS are blind to the overwhelming evidence that these documents are blatant forgeries.
"Sincerely,
"Robert "Corky" Cartwright Rice University"