[eslaught]

The other comments here are true, but it's worth pointing out explicitly: High-quality fonts have already had this done to them, and contain the resulting information explicitly in the font file. Most software packages (Latex since forever, recent versions of MS Word) understand how to read this information and apply it automatically to text. There are relatively few cases were you actually need to touch this in practice, assuming your fonts and software are doing their job.

The article itself is describing what you would do to fix kerning in a low-quality font. But really, why would you want to waste your time with that? Even properly kerned, a low-quality font will have other flaws.

There are still certain typographical tasks like avoiding rivers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_%28typography%29) which are not handled well by existing typographical engines. But most everything else can be done well with Latex and a good font.

So the real lessons here are:

1. Pay for high-quality fonts. This is just one more reason to do so.

2. If you have to use MS Word, use a recent version or run it through Adobe InDesign afterwards. Or just do it correctly from the beginning with Latex.

3. For very large text that will be used frequently (such as in logos), pay for a designer.