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Here, we discuss some typography basics. While this information is
not essential, many font lovers will find it interesting.
3.1. Classifications of Typefaces
3.1.1. Fixed versus variable width
There are several classifications of typefaces. Firstly, there are
fixed width fonts, and variable width fonts. The fixed width fonts look
like typewriter text, because each character is the same width. This
quality is desirable for something like a text editor or a computer
console, but not desirable for the body text of a long document. The
other class is variable width. Most of the fonts you will use are variable
width, though fixed width can be useful also ( for example, all the
example shell commands in this document are illustrated with a fixed
width font ). The most well known fixed width font is Courier.
3.1.2. To serif or not to serif ?
Serifs are little hooks on the ends of characters. For example, the
letter i in a font such as Times Roman has serifs protruding from the
base of the i and the head of the i. Serif fonts are usually considered
more readable than fonts without serifs. There are many different types
of serif fonts.
Sans serif fonts do not have these little hooks, so they have a starker
appearance. One usually does not write a long book using a sans serif
font for the body text. There are sans serif fonts that are readable
enough to be well suited to documents that are supposed to be browsed
/ skimmed ( web pages, catalogues, marketing brochures ). Another application
that sans serif fonts have is as display fonts on computer screens,
especially at small sizes. The lack of detail in the font can provide
it with more clarity. For example, Microsoft touts Verdana as being
readable at very small sizes on screen.
Notable sans serif fonts include Lucida Sans, MS Comic Sans, Verdana,
Myriad, Avant Garde, Arial, Century Gothic and Helvetica. By the way,
Helvetica is considered harmful by typographers. It is somewhat overused,
and many books by typographers plead users to stay away from it.
3.1.3. The old and the new -- different types of Serif fonts
3.1.3.1. Old Style
Old style fonts are based on very traditional styles dating as far
back as the late 15th century. Old style fonts tend to be conservative
in design, and very readable. They are well suited to writing long documents.
The name ``old style'' refers to the style of the font, as opposed to
the date of its design. There are classic old style fonts, such as Goudy
Old Style, which were designed in the 20th century. The old style class
of fonts has the following distinguishing features:
- Well defined, shapely serifs.Diagonal emphasis.
- Imagine drawing a font with a fountain pen, where lines 45 degrees
anticlockwise from vertical are heavy and lines 45 degrees clockwise
from vertical are light. Old style fonts often have this appearance.
- Readability. Old style fonts are almost always very readable.
- Subtlety and lack of contrast. The old style fonts have heavy lines
and light lines but the contrast in weight is subtle, not stark.
Notable Old Style fonts include Garamond, Goudy Old Style, Jenson, and
Caslon ( the latter is contentious -- some consider it transitional )
3.1.3.2. Moderns ( or didone )
The moderns are the opposite of old style fonts. These fonts typically
have more character, and more attitude than their old style counterparts,
and can be used to add character to a document rather than to typeset
a long piece. However, nothing is black and white -- and there are some
modern fonts such as computer modern and Monotype modern, and New Century
Schoolbook which are very readable ( the contrast between heavy and light
is softened to add readability ). They are based on the designs popular
in the 19th century and later. Their distinguishing features include:
- Lighter serifs, often just thin horizontal lines.
- Vertical emphasis. Vertical lines are heavy, horizontal lines are
light.
- Many moderns have a stark contrast between light and heavy strokes.
- Modern typefaces with high contrast between light and heavy strokes
are not as readable as the old style fonts.
Bodoni is the most notable modern. Other moderns include computer modern,
and Monotype modern ( on which computer modern is based ).
3.1.3.3. Transitional
Transitional fonts fit somewhere in between moderns and old style fonts.
Many of the transitionals have the same kind of readability as the old
styles. However, they are based on slightly later design. While a move
in the direction of the moderns may be visible in these fonts, they are
still much more subtle than the moderns. Examples of transitionals include
Times Roman, Utopia, Bulmer, and Baskerville. Of these, Times leans towards
old style, while Bulmer looks very modern.
3.1.3.4. Slab Serifs
The slab serif fonts are so named because they have thick, block like
serifs, as opposed to the smooth hooks of the old styles or the thin lines
of some of the moderns. Slab serif fonts tend to be sturdy looking and
are generally quite readable. Many of the slab serifs have Egyptian names
-- such as Nile, and Egyptienne ( though they are not really in any way
Egyptian ). These fonts are great for producing readable text that may
suffer some dilution in quality ( such as photocopied documents, and documents
printed on newspaper ). These fonts tend to look fairly sturdy. The most
notable slab serif fonts are Clarendon, Memphis and Egyptienne, as well
as several typewriter fonts. Many of the slab serif fonts are fixed width.
Conversely, most ( almost all ) fixed width fonts are slab serif.
3.1.4. The Sans Serif Revolution
Surprisingly, the rise of sans serif fonts is a fairly recent phenomenon.
The first well known sans serif fonts were designed in the 19th early
20th century. The earlier designs include Futura, Grotesque and Gill Sans.
These fonts represent respectively the ``geometric'', ``grotesque'' and
``humanist'' classes of sans serif fonts.
3.1.4.1. Grotesque
The grotesques where so named because the public were initially somewhat
shocked by their relatively stark design. Groteques are very bare in appearance
due to the absence of serifs, and the simpler, cleaner designs. Because
of their ``in your face'' appearance, grotesques are good for headlines.
The more readable variations also work quite well for comic books, and
marketing brochures, where the body text comes in small doses. Grotesques
don't look as artsy as their geometric counterparts. Compared to the geometrics,
they have more variation in weight, more strokes, they are squarer ( because
they don't use such circular arcs ). They use a different upper case G
and lower case a to the geometrics. While they are minimalistic but don't
go to the same extreme as the brutally avant-garde geometrics.
Notable grotesques include the overused Helvetica, Grotesque, Arial,
Franklin Gothic, and Univers.
3.1.4.2. Geometric
The Futura font came with the manifesto: form follows function. The geometric
class of fonts has a stark minimalistic appearance. Distinguishing features
include a constant line thickness ( no weight ). This is particularly
conspicuous in the bold variants of a font. Bold groteques and humanist
fonts often show some notable variation in weight while this rarely happens
with the geometric fonts. Also notable is the precise minimalism of these
designs. The characters almost always are made up from straight horizontal
and vertical lines, and arcs that are very circular ( to the point where
they often look as though they were drawn with a compass ). The characters
have a minimal number of strokes. This gives them a contemporary look
in that they embrace the minimalistic philosophy that would later take
the world of modern art by storm. A tell tale sign that a font is a geometric
type is the upper case ``G'', which consists of a minimalistic combination
of two strokes -- a long circular arc and a horizontal line. The other
character that stands out is the lower case ``a'' -- which is again two
simple strokes, a straight vertical line and a circle ( the other ``a''
character is more complex which is why it is not used ). Notable geometrics
include Avant Garde, Futura, and Century Gothic.
3.1.4.3. Humanist
As the name might suggest, humanist fonts were designed with a goal of
being less mechanical in appearance. In many ways, they are more similar
to the serif fonts than the geometrics and the grotesques. They are said
to have a ``pen drawn'' look about them. They tend to have subtle variation
in weight, especially observable in bold variants. The curve shapes are
considerably less rigid than those of the geometrics. Many of them are
distinguishable by the ``double story'' lower case g, which is the same
shape as the g used in the old style serif fonts. The humanist typefaces
are the easiest to use without producing an ugly document as they are
relatively compatible with the old style fonts.
3.1.5. Compatible Typefaces
Grouping typefaces is not easy, so it pays to avoid using too many on
the one page. A logical choice of two typefaces consists of a serif and
a sans serif. Monotype's Typography 101 page provides a category-matchup.
They conclude that the moderns and geometrics form good pairs, while the
old styles and humanists also go together well. The transitionals are
also paired with the humanists. The slab serifs are paired with the grotesques,
and some variants of the slab serifs are also said to match the geometrics
or humanists.
From reading this, one gets the impression that their philosophy is essentially
to match the more conservative serifs with the more moderate sans serifs,
and pair the wilder modern serifs with the avant garde looking ( pun unavoidable
) geometrics.
3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts
3.2.1. Ligatures
Properly spacing fonts brings with it all sorts of issues. For example,
to properly typeset the letters ``fi'', the i should be very close to
the f. The problem is that this causes the dot on the i to collide with
the f, and the serif on the head of the i to collide with the horizontal
stroke of the f. To deal with this problem, font collections include ligatures.
For example, the ``fi'' ligature character is a single character that
one can substitute for the two character string ``fi''. Most fonts contain
fi and fl ligatures. Expert fonts discussed later often include extra
ligatures, such as ffl, ffi, and a dotless i character.
3.2.2. Small caps fonts
Small caps fonts are fonts that have reduced size upper case letters
in place of the lower case letters. These are useful for writing headings
that require emphasis ( and they are often used in LaTeX ). Typically,
when one writes a heading in small caps, they use a large cap for the
beginning of each word, and small capitals for the rest of the word (
``title case'' ). The advantage of this over using all caps is that you
get something that is much more readable ( using all caps is a big typographic
sin ).
3.2.3. Expert fonts
Expert fonts consist of several extras designed to supplement a typeface.
These include things like ligatures, ornaments ( much like a mini-dingbats
collection designed to go with the typeface ), small caps fonts, and swash
capitals ( fancy, calligraphic letters ).
3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes
Font metrics define the spacing between variable width fonts. The metrics
include information about the size of the font, and kerning information,
which assigns kerning pairs -- pairs of characters that should be given
different spacing. For example, the letters ``To'' would usually belong
in a kerning pair, because correctly spaced ( or kerned ), the o should
partly sit under the T. Typesetting programs such as LaTeX need to know
information about kerning so that they can make decisions about where
to break lines and pages. The same applies to WYSIWYG publishing programs.
The other important component of a font is the outline, or shape. The
components of the fonts shape ( a stroke, an accent, etc ) are called
``glyphs''.
Font HowTo
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. The Location of This Document
1.2. Submitting corrections/errata
1.3. Last Updated
1.4. Copyright
1.5. Rationale
1.6. Credits and Acknowledgements
2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts
2.1. Types of Fonts
2.2. Families of Typefaces
3. Fonts 102 -- Typography
3.1. Classifications of Typefaces
3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and
expert fonts
3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes
4. Making Fonts Available To X
4.1. The font path
4.2. Installing Type 1 Fonts
4.3. True Type Fonts
4.4. xfs
5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript
5.1. Type 1
5.2. True Type
5.3. Using Ghostscript To Preview
Fonts
6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion
6.1. Why ?
6.2. How ?
7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts
7.1. Introduction and Overview
7.2. Applixware
7.3. Star Office
7.4. Word Perfect
8. Netscape
9. TeX / LaTeX
9.1. A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts
9.2. Adding Type 1 fonts
10. Getting Fonts For Linux
10.1. True Type
10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
11. Useful Font Software for Linux
12. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type
13. References
13.1. Font Information
13.2. Postscript and Printing Information
14. Glossary
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