I
Narrow condensed faces used to becalled “compressed”. They cram about
fivecharacters in thespace where three usually go —ideal for spreadsheets.
An extended face, particularly on adot-matrix printer, goes by several
names:“expanded “,“enlarged” or “double-width” printing. Nomatter what
it’scalled, extended print is wider than it is high, and can be fairly effective
inpage headings.
Italiccharacters (sometimes called “oblique”) are slanted. Ordinary upright
characters areoften called “roman”. Your Star LaserPrinter 4111comeswith
abuilt-inuprightCouriertypeface. Moreover,fromany oftheStarLaserPrinter
4111’sbuilt-intypefaces you can select asubset of upright symbols called
Roman-8.
A,font is acomplete set of characters in aparticular size and typeface. In
the world of laser printers, the three variables mentioned above—weight,
width and style—are afew~ont attributes (sometimes called “font charac-
teristics”). Let’s consider three more attributes: font height, spacing and
pitch.
3.1.2 Font height
The baseline is the invisible line upon which characters of type sit. Since
thefirst letter blockswere made of lead alloy, the distancefrom one baseline
tothe nextis called leading(pronounced “ledding”). Type itself ismeasured
fromthe top of an uscender (the part extending up in the bork, forexample)
to the bottom of adescender (thedown-stroke of they or q).
Themeasurements used to describe fonts are points andpicas (derived from
themarks and letters in medieval church almanacs). There are 12 points to
the pica, and almost exactly 6picas (72 points) to the inch.
Laserprinters for computers measure~ont heightin points. On laser printers
the “white space” above ascenders and below descenders depends on how
the line is defined, so the line corresponds to leading. This type you’re
reading has afontheight of 12 points,and is spaced alittle less than 5lines
per inch.
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