🚀 go-pugleaf

Keyword: S p e r r s a t z

The design of a \wider macro is indeed an interesting task. Wider
tyepsetting is called {\em Sperrsatz} in german typography and is (was?)
traditionally used for emphasis. Italic type was used to denote borrowed
foreing words or phrases in their original language.

However, good Sperrsatz has some characteristics which look hard to achieve
by a TeX macro:
 *  It shall allow hyphenation.
 *  Some ligatures are spaced out, but other remain. This feature is font
    and language dependent, in german fraktur typesetting the ligatures
    ch, ck and \ss remain, all others are separated.

It looks like a good field of an apllication of virtual fonts, just add
some space to the right and left of the letters and than chose the VF
cmrs10 (Computer Modern Roman Sperrsatz 10) for Sperrsatz...

Yours, J"org Knappen.

P.S. the font cmrs10.vf does not exist yet.