-2ex is OK, it looks remarkably like the output FontForge proposes. To John: I don't think there should be copyright infringements, as I'm modifying output, not the font per se. And what's more it's XeTeX that gets it wrong, by apparently ignoring the *right* kerning set by font designers. What I'm trying to do is just a workaround to remedy deficiencies in XeTeX. Now, back to the "kerning=mykerns", I heard about a mycrotypography package, could it be of use to me? Since,as I told you all, this combination occurs very frequently--and my book is quite long--if I could put this setting in the prologue, I could spare myself a big waste of time. Thank you all for helping me so far.
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