[math-font-discuss] Kerning and PDF conversions

[Mark Bachmann]

Hi!

I typeset engineering papers using OzTeX with the "Times" package so 
that the body copy is Times Roman.

I create PDFs of the papers by using the dvips tool in OzTeX to create 
postscript files from my .dvi files, and then creating PDFs from the 
postscript files by using either Acrobat Distiller or my Mac computer's 
native PDF-creation software.

In both cases, text columns that are justified in the .dvi file show a 
slightly uneven right edge in the PDF file. For narrow columns, the 
effect is barely noticeable, but for wide columns with many characters 
per line, the effect is obvious and undesirable.

My guess is that the tracking/kerning values get recalculated according 
to a different system during the conversion process.

Is there a way of preventing this, so that a perfectly justified column 
remains a perfectly justified column?

Thanks.

Mark Bachmann