When I type fff the first two letters are closer than the last two   

In MS Word when I type fff in {Times New Roman Bold Italic 24 Point} the first 
two letters are closer together than the last two letters. Why is this? This 
does not happen when I do the same thing in MS NotePad. Is this a ligature 
issue?

Thanks

date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 12:02:28 -0600   author:   Peter Olcott