Typesetting Terminology

Typesetting terminology is a difficult field. No universally accepted system for classifying fonts exists, and many of the terms in use mean different things to different people. Traditional printing terminology and that used in desktop publishing and Web design don't always agree.

The word "type" is derived from the Greek word typos, which means "impression" and "shape." Today, "type" refers to letters and other symbols that create words and sentences.

A typeface, sometimes called face, is all type of a single design and style. All letters and symbols within a typeface share some common characteristics so that they visually fit together. For example, the vertical stems of letters within a typeface typically have the same thickness.

Several typefaces that share the same basic design form a type family. The different typefaces in a type family can vary in style by certain attributes, including weight (degree of boldness versus lightness), width (such as narrow versus expanded), and posture (straight versus slanted). Among the most common type families are Helvetica, Arial, and Palatino. Times New Roman (TR) is the name of another popular type family. TR Regular, TR Italic, TR Bold, and TR Bold Italic are typefaces within the TR type family. Figure 5.1 shows the TR family and a sample of each typeface.

Figure 5.1. Four typefaces of the Times New Roman type family.

The most common type families usually have at least these four styles: regular (also called "roman"), bold (also known as "boldface"), italic, and bold italic. The roman style often forms the basic and most commonly used typeface within the family because, in many type families, it is appropriate for running text. However, all type families have their own version of roman, even those whose appearance is inappropriate for running text. Furthermore, not every type family has variations, while other families have many typefaces with these or other characteristics, such as being narrow, expanded, or condensed.

The traditional definition of a font is one typeface in one size. For example, a 10pt TR Regular is one font, a 12pt TR Regular is another font, and so is a 14pt TR Regular. These differ only in their sizes, and each is considered to be a font by the traditional definition. Other fonts could be 10pt TR Bold, 10pt TR Italic, and 10pt TR Bold Italic. These differ only in their style, weight, or both.

This definition of font comes from the time when each size and variation of a typeface were cast in lead (Figure 5.2) and stored separately from other fonts so that they wouldn't get mixed up. This also meant the number of fonts was relatively limited (even large printers only had room for so many different fonts). With the introduction of photocomposition (a type technology) and digital computers, type can be scaled by small amounts easily, thus the number of fonts is potentially much greater. So, the consideration of size in the definition of font is no longer useful, and the terms font, typeface, and face are all used synonymously, as is the case in this book. So, we consider TR Italic to be a font, TR Bold to be a font, etc., with no consideration of the size of type.

Figure 5.2. Metal type. Small lead or brass blocks all the same height (the font size) but different widths, each with a raised mirror image of a letter, are assembled on rails to form lines. Spaces bear no letter image. The lines are arranged and locked into a galley to form the pages. After inking, the page is printed onto a sheet of paper.