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JGoffin - terms used on alt.binaries.fontsBF Category: Technical and IT Date & country: 20/09/2007, UK Words: 149

path
A sequence of points which may be connected, open, or closed. Outline fonts are made up of a combination of paths.

permanent font
A font which once downloaded to a PostScript printer, remains in the printer's memory until the power is turned off.

pica
A unit of typographic measurement equal to 0.166 inches or 12 points.

pixel
Square dots that represent the smallest units displayed on a computer screen. Typical monitors display between 72 and 96 pixels per inch. Characters and graphics are created by turning pixels on or off.

point
A unit of typographic measurement equal to (in electronic typography) 1/72 inch (0.01383 inches).

point size
The height of the type body. A standard type measurement system was originally developed by the Parisian type founder Piérre Fournier Le Jeune in 1737. In the days of metal type, the point size was the total number of points in the height of metal type, including the ascent and descent of the letters, and the metal above and below the letters (ie. built-in leading).

PostScript
The page description language developed by Adobe, and used in professional printing. Broadly, it works by describing the output as a series of geometric shapes, rather than the traditional rows of dots, making it easier to work at higher and different resolutions. Type 1 fonts use the PostScript language.

printer font
A font that is stored permanently in a PostScript printer. When the font is used in a document, rather than download the font the printer font is substituted to speed up printing.

proportionately spaced type
Type whose character widths vary according to the features of the letters (as opposed to monospaced type).

rasterization rendering
The process of converting outlines into bitmaps. The outlines are scaled to the desired size and filled by turning on pixels inside the outline. The process is used both when printing on to paper, and when appearing on screen.

reference
A reference to one or more glyphs in a font, to make a composite glyph. For example, a quarter fraction may be made up of a reference to 1 and a 4.

resolution
The number of dots in an image’s screen display or printed output. A monitor’s resolution refers to the number of pixels per linear inch. Printed resolution refers to dots per inch.

roman
The upright version of a face within a font family, as compared to the italic version.

sans serif
A typeface without serifs (ie. counterstrokes, short lines at opposing angles) at the end of each stroke. Sans serif fonts are typically used for headlines, rather than body text

scale
To change the size of a glyph or image by altering it proportionally.

screen font
Bitmap fonts used for screen display.

script
A style of font in which letters are joined, as in handwriting. It should not be confused with cursive fonts, in which the letters are not connected. Early script typefaces were developed in the sixteenth century, and were based upon formal handwriting.

serif
Small decorative strokes that are added to the end of a letter's main strokes. Serifs improve readability in long passages of text by leading the eye along the line of type, but can be more difficult to read as headlines.

SF
Denotes fonts created by the Shy Fonts foundry.

shoulder
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/shoulder.gif'> Also the metal, triangular in cross-section, between the printing surface and the body on a metal sort.

sidebearings
The distance between the origin and the left edge of a character (left sidebearing) and the distance between the width line and the right edge of a character (right sidebearing).

small caps SC
A font that has smaller, redrawn versions of the uppercase letters in the spaces normally reserved for lowercase letters. Many desktop publishing programs will approximate this by using uppercase letters at a smaller point size, but in true small caps fonts the letters are redrawn to take into account optical effects.

Softy
A shareware font editor. > Softy

spacing
The amount of unused area that exists between glyphs.

spine
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/spine_desc.gif'>

spur
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/asc_spur.gif'>

SSi
Denotes fonts created by the Southern Software International foundry.

stem
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/stem.gif'>

stress
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/stress.gif'>

stroke
A line which may be expanded in width; or the width of the linear elements that compose characters.

Stuffit .sit
A file compression system, popular on the Macintosh. Decompress using StuffIt or similar. > StuffIt

swash capitals
Uppercase letters that have flourishes added to them. Originally designed to go with italic typefaces.

tail
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/tail.gif'>

terminal
img src='http://www.jgoffin.freeserve.co.uk/abf/glossary/hairline_terminal.gif'>

transient font
A font which stays in the printer memory only until the current document is finished printing.

TrueType .ttf
A vector font format, and until recently Windows' native font format. Developed by Apple and licensed by Microsoft for use on screen and for printing. More widely used than Type 1 fonts, but regarded as the lesser of the two by type professionals. TrueType Open was an extension to the format introduced by Microsoft, but that too has now been superceded by OpenType.

Type 1
A vector font format. Developed by Adobe using their PostScript printer language, Type 1 fonts are the print industry standard. To use Type 1 fonts on earlier versions of Windows, users must install Adobe Type Manager. However, Windows NT can convert Type 1 to TrueType, and Windows XP has Type 1 support built-in. Now superceded by OpenType.

Type 3
Also referred to as user-defined fonts, these are non-Adobe encrypted fonts. They will not appear on-screen if you are using ATM.

typeface
A set of glyph which share a similar appearance. Several typefaces may together make up a font family.

Typograf
A popular shareware font management program that helps keep TrueType and Type 1 font installations under control. > Neuber

typographic colour
The apparent blackness of a block of text. Colour is a function of the relative thickness of the strokes that make up the characters in a font (its weight), as well as the width, point size and leading used for setting the text.

unicode
A character encoding system that spans a number of languages and scripts.

UU Encode .uue
When newsgroups were first set up, they were designed to carry text messages using a limited range of characters and symbols. Since then, the technology has been adapted to support multiple languages and attached pictures, music, and of course fonts. To do this, messages are encoded before they are sent and decoded when they are received using a system called UUEncode. .uue files are encoded using this system. Use WinRAR or similar to decode them.

Web Embedded Font Technology WEFT
A system developed by Microsoft that allows web designers to embed fonts or parts of a font in a webpage, so that anyone viewing the page sees it in the intended font; traditionally users have had to already have the font installed on their computers. WEFT only works with Internet Explorer, and has not been widely taken up. > Microsoft

weight
The measurement of a stroke’s width; or, in general, the heaviness of a character or font. Common names for weights include demibold, light, and bold. Some typeface families have several weights, ranging between ultra-bold and extra-light.

WF
Denotes fonts created by the Walden Fonts foundry.

word spacing
Adjusting the average distance between words to improve legibility or to fit a block of text into a given amount of space. Compare to letter spacing.

WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get. A phrase meaning that the what you see on screen, in terms of layout, fonts, colours and graphics, is as close as possible to what you would see printed out on paper.

yEnc
Shortened form of yEncode, an alternative way of sending files over newsgroups to the traditional UUEncode system. yEnc is still relatively new, and some popular newsreaders, including Outlook Express, do not yet recognise it. > yEnc