Star Micronics 8 Series - Page 45

The o has been kerned
The font height (24 points) is measured
closer to the f.
from
●scender to descender.
I
4
A font is a complete set of
~ characters in a particular
~~~~~~~
t
size and type~ace.
B.ss@line
Uu
Proportional
Serif
spacing
L;ading is the
baseline to bas-line
measurement.
Fontspacingandpitch
Youprobablyfirst heard the wordpitch in comection with typewriters.
Typewritersnormallyusemonospacedspacing:theygiveeachcharacterthe
sameamountof spaceon theline.
Abouthalfthefontsavailableforlaserprintersusemonospacedspacingtoo.
Pitch is alwaysexpressedas so many charactemper inch.Ten-pitch,for
example,meansa fontwithten charactersin eachinchof theline.
Typesetter forcenturieshaveusedtwospecialsizesoftypeformosttext.
EfitecharactersareIOpointshighand print12charactersperinch.Andpica
chararactersare 12 pointshigh and pitchedat 10 charactersto the inch.
You’ll,often run acrossthesemonospacedfontsizes in thelaser printing
world.
Ideallyeachcharacterinawordshouldnestleagainstitsncighbourssothey
appearevenlyspaced.Butadjacentroundcharactersare aptto look100far
apart,whileflat-sidedcharactersmay appeartooclose.
Proportionalspacingtakesinto accountthe differencesin widthsamong
letters(compareiiwithWW).Proportionallyspacedprintingiseasiertoread
than typewriter-styleprintingin whichall characters,includingpunctua-
tion,havethesamewidth.
Realtypesettersequipcertaincharactemwithkerns,letterpartsthatextend
out to overlapadjoiningletters.In this word Typethey is kernedclosely
againsttheT. Kerningseparatesgreattypefromgoodtype.
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