"RK" == Reinhard Kotucha writes: RK> As far as I can see, it's reasonable to add a new primitive so RK> that you can write RK> \font\myfont=xyz \myfont \compwordkern\font = .2em RK> The TeX macro which breaks ligatures then can insert RK> \compwordkern for the current font. RK> This way we can have different kernings for different fonts and RK> we are completey independ of the fonts we use. i think that you may utilize fontdimen for that - no need for a new macro... after loading a font, you are allowed to modify the fontdimen registers (or you may decide to store the compwordkern in the fontdimen directly in the TFM). as an advantage, it will also be automatically scaled depending on the "magnification" of the font. Best, v.