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DESIGN.C7
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** E-Mail Desktop Publishing Design Course **
***** LESSON 3B *****
Digitized Type
Most of todays typesetters and laser and dot matrix printers produce
type in digital form. Each character is made up of very fine dots or
"pixels" which are stored in your computers memory. Because the dots
are on a rectangular raster or grid, the curved and diagonal lines
are made up of very fine steps.
Conventional typesetting machines use a raster of as many as 3000
lines to the inch (3000 DPI). This reproduces characters with great
fidelity, particularly in larger sizes. There are variations on this
basic technique. Some methods use vertical lines only; others trace
the outline of a letter by a series of straight-line "vectors" before
filling it in. For the personal computer user these differences are
academic. It is the quality of the image as judged by the human eye
that is important.
Most laser printers use a resolution of 2-300 lines to the inch. The
laser output cannot be as sharp as that of the commercial typesetter.
Nevertheless it can give a reasonable approximation of the original
type design.
One question I am asked over and over is about the quality of the
public domain and shareware fonts versus their commercial
counterparts.
Adobe, Bitstream and other commercial houses, when digitizing their
type, use the original type specs and use a raster grid of appx 2000
lines. Most of the PD faces do not have access to the original design
and use a raster of 300 lines per inch. If your document is to be
published at home on your laser, you can probably get away with using
the PD fonts. Just watch out for type sizes larger than 24 pt. as
their quality will degrade. If however you will be using a commercial
printer for your work in anything above 1200 DPI, then the PD type
will just not be of a sufficient quality for a professional looking
document.
Typeface design is an extremely skilled and subtle art. Very slight
differences in a curve or weight of line can change the entire
character of a letterform and profoundly affect its legibility.
Question - Where did the terms uppercase and lowercase
come from?
In the beginning years of printing with movable type, printers
used wooden cases to store and categorize their type. The cases
consisted of two drawers one above the other. The uppercase contained
the capital letterforms and numbers, the lower case contained all the
other forms including the non-capital letters. Eventually these words
moved into our vocabulary to mean uppercase as capital letters and
lowercase as non-capitals.
*** Type and other forms of measurement ***
Traditionally type sizes and all typographical specifications have
been measured in "points". (actually since 1789). This part of
printing terminology has been carried over into the technology of the
personal computer. Originally the point size referred to the size of
the type "body"; that is, the depth of the piece of metal type on
which the "face" of the type was fitted. So the size of the printed
"face" depends on its proportion on the "body". For example 12 pt.
Helvetica looks bigger than 12 pt. Times, even though they occupy the
same depth from line to line.
On personal computers typeface sizes relate approximately to the
traditional type sizes. But it is quite common for a 10 pt type to be
on the same body size as 12 pt. This is not a serious problem
providing that you are aware of it. Always run off a few lines of the
type size that you are going to use to see what you are going to get
and how much space it takes up.
The units of measurement used to specify column widths, margins, etc.
vary from one program to another. It will usually be available in
inches, metric, and sometimes points. Inches are conveniently close to
the British American point system. 1 pica (or 12 pt. em) is 0.166 of
an inch (appx 1/6 inch) so 6 picas are only very slightly less than 1
inch. Unless you are preparing specs for a commercial printer, it
doesn't really matter which system you use as long as you are
comfortable with it.
Interline Space
The size of a typeface is defined by its body. If additional space is
added between the lines, it is usually referred to as "leading" (after
the strips of lead that printers used to space out the lines of type)
or "line feed".
A type set on its own body size without additional line feed is said
to be "set solid". A 10 pt. type with 2 pts. of additional space
between the lines is specified as "10 on 12 pt." Printers will often
refer to this as "2 pt. leaded" or "2 pt. line feed". On some programs
it is possible to reduce the leading to less than the body size. This
may save space but the loss in legibility will be intolerable, so
don't do it.
*** Continued in Lesson 3C ***