Star Micronics 4 manual Size and type ace, Font spacingandpitch

The o has beenkerned	The font height(24 points) is measured
closer to th- f.	from ●scenderto descender.

A fontI is a complete4 set of

Ascender

- characters in a particular
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size and type[ ace.
Uu Proportional		Swif
	spacing

L;ading is tho baselineto baseline m~asuremcnt.

Descender

Baseline

3.1.3 Font spacingandpitch

You probably first heard the word pitch in connectionwith typewriters. Typewntersnonnallyusemonospacedspacing:theygiveeachcharacterthe same amountof spaceon the line.

Abouthalfthefontsavailableforlaserprintersusemonospacedspacingtoo. Pitch is always expressedas so many charactersper inch. Ten-pitch,for example,meansa font with ten charactersin each inch of the line.

Typesetter for centurieshaveused two specialsizesof type for most text. EZitecharactersare IOpointshighand print12charactemperinch.Andpica chararactersare 12 points high and pitched at 10 charactersto the inch. You’ll often run across these monospacedfont sizes in the laser printing world.

Ideallyeachcharacterin a wordshouldnestleagainstits neighbors sothey appearevenlyspaced.But adjacentroundcharactersare aptto look too far apafi,while flat-sidedcharactersmay appeartoo close.

Proportionalspacing takes into accountthe differencesin widths among letters(compareii withWW).Proportionallyspacedprintingiseasierto read than typewriter-styleprintingin which all characters,includingpunctua- tion, have the same width.

Realtypesettersequipcertaincharactemwith kerns,letterpans that extend out to overlap adjoiningletters. In this word Type they is kerned closely againstthe T. Kerningseparatesgreattype from good type.

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