>If you were typesetting in Fraktur, you had no choice but to use >letter-spacing. The use of italics became possible only after the >abolition of Fraktur. In mathematics, variables are usually typeset in some kind of slanted type (like italics), whereas contants (usually function names, and the like) are usually typeset upright, even though tradition provides many exceptions (like the numbers e and pi, which are contants usually typeset in italics). It would in fact be a good idea of having a good set of upright and slanted (both upppercase/lowercase) of fraktur and script styles for mathematical purposes (the AMS-Fonts package does not provide it). For example, when speaking about categories C, D, one would use say slanted script, but when indicating the functor category Fun(C,D), the name "Fun" would be typeset in upright script. Hans Aberg