Table of Contents
Advertisement
Narrow
condensed
faces used to be called "compressed". They cram about
five characters in the space where three usually go- ideal for spreadsheets.
An extended face, particularly on a dot-matrix printer, goes by several
names: "expanded, " "enlarged" or "double-width" printing. No matter what
it's called, extended print is wider than it is high, and can be fairly effective
in page headings.
Italic characters (sometimes called "oblique") are slanted. Ordinary upright
characters are often called "reman". Your Star LaserPrinter 8 comes with a
built-in upright Courier typeface. Moreover, from any of the Star Laser-
Printer 8's built-in typefaces you can select a subset of upright symbols
called Roman-8.
A
font
is a complete set of characters in a particular size and typeface. In the
world of laser printers, the three variables mentioned above- weight, width
and style-
are a few
font attributes
(sometimes called "font characteris-
tics"). Let's consider three more attributes: font height, spacing and pitch.
Font height
The
baseline
is the invisible line upon which characters of type sit. Since the
first letter blocks were made of lead alloy, the distance from one baseline to
the
next is called
leading
(pronounced "ledding"). Type itself is measured
from the top of
an ascender
(the part extending up in the
b
or
k
, for example)
to the bottom of a
descender
(the down-stroke of the y or (7 ).
The measurements used to describe fonts
arepoints
and
picas
(derived from
the marks and letters in medieval church almanacs). There are 12 points to
the pica, and almost exactly 6 picas (72 points) to the inch. Your Star
Laser-Printer 8 quite handily prints type from 6 to 36 points in size.
Laser printers for computers measurefont
height
in points. On laser printers
the "white space" above ascenders and below descenders depends on how
the
fine
is defined, so the line corresponds to leading. This type you're
reading has a font height of 12 points, and is spaced a little less than 5 lines
per inch.
36
-
Advertisement
Table of Contents
