Is there a monospaced typeface with kerning?

Question

The problem with monospaced typefaces is that all glyphs have to have the same width, but different characters need various amount of space. For example, fitting ‘m’ to the same width as ‘i’ results in that ‘m’ is too narrow or ‘i’ is too wide. Also, monospaced typefaces can't use normal kerning because that could distrupt the monospacedness.

I got the idea that kerning of monospaced typefaces would work if all kerning pairs together compensate each other so that the total width wouldn't change. If that happened within individual words, it wouldn't disrupt the monospacedness significantly. I don't know the details of OpenType, but, as far as I know, there is the ability to change the glyphs based on context, so I expect that this would be possible.

Is there a typeface implementing this or something similar? I would like to know how the idea works in practice.

I created some mockups to illustrate what I mean. Every odd line has monospaced letters. Every even line has kerning and extension of letters to look better IMO but so that the width of the word doesn't change. The extension is specifically that ‘m’ gets wider and ‘i’ and ‘I’ get narrower.

Answer 1

This is a really interesting idea! It's not a contradiction in terms, it's an interesting idea...but I've never seen a font like this. I could imagine two ways of implementing it: either with kerning pairs or by storing separate forms of the characters with the glyph design offset to the left or right and substituting them in depending on the characters before or after. I'm not technically expert enough to know which would be more practical.

There are some fonts which look monospaced but aren't if you're interested, Christopher Bergman's Isoglosse blog has a list. But I get what you're asking for and that that isn't quite what you want.

Answer 2

Monaspace

Monaspace almost solves that. It has texture healing, which is that some letters have contextual alternates to better use space between some letters. It works only on pairs, so it doesn't affect words like “main”.

Texture healing works by finding each pair of adjacent characters where one wants more space, and one has too much. Narrow characters are swapped for ones that cede some of their whitespace, and wider characters are swapped for ones that extend to the very edge of their box. This swapping is powered by an OpenType feature called “contextual alternates,” which is widely supported by both operating systems and browser engines.

– from the page for Monaspace

Commit Mono

Commit Mono has what is called “smart kerning”, which is similar but better because it works on more than just pairs.

Commit Mono uses an innovative technique to improve kerning. Kerning is crucial for efficient reading, but it’s not possible if you want a monospaced font. ‘Smart Kerning’ combats this by sliding letters to better spacing positions – all while preserving monospacing. This gives Commit Mono a superior reading experience compared to other monospaced fonts.

– from the page for Commit Mono

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Comparison

A comparison of kerning of the typefaces mentioned above on my original examples. The red is added by kerning; the blue is removed by kerning.

It can be seen that Monaspace Neon deforms kerned glyphs; that makes the text too inconsistent according to some. Commit Mono's kerning is wider and more subtle, and it doesn't deform the glyphs; it just moves them, so it avoids the inconsistency.