At some time in the course of your travels you may encounter a thing called Multiple Master Fonts. The idea behind this format developed by Adobe was that you, the designer, could take a master font and bend it to your will -- specifying wider strokes, less spacing, whatever you needed. Basically, you could create your own customized font using Adobe Type Manager and a Multiple Master Font. Neat idea that never quite took hold. You may find some Multiple Master Fonts still floating around out there but they really aren't a contender in the font format wars.