Arm Short horizontal strokes, as in E, F, L, T, or inclined upward as in Y, K. (return to top)

Ascender The stem of a lowercase letter projecting above the x-height. Ascenders and descenders are sometimes called extenders. (return to top)

Axis Formed by the thinning of the stroke in round letters of Roman origin. In oldstyle types the axis is inclined to the left, while in transitional and modern types it is vertical. Exceptions occur due primarily to the vagaries of individual designers. (return to top)

Ball Terminal A circular form at the end of the arm in letters such as a, c, f, j, r and y. Ball terminals are found in many Romans and italics of the Romantic period, and in recent faces built on Romantic lines. Examples: Bodoni, Scotch Roman, Clarendon, Basilia. (return to top)

Base Line The imaginary line supporting the bottom serifs of capitals and lowercase. (return to top)

Beak Terminal A sharp spur, found particularly on the f, and also often on a, c, j, r and y in many twentieth-century romans and, to a lesser degree, italics. Examples: Perpetua, Berling, Pontifex, Caiisto, Ignatius. (return to top)

Bitmap A digital representation of a character or page area with each dot in the print area represented by a bit in computer memory, set to on (print) or off (non-printing). (return to top)

Body Size The height of the face of the type, which in letterpress terms is the depth of the body of the type. Originally, this was the height of the face of the metal block on which each individual letter was cast. In digital type, it is the height of its imaginary equivalent, the rectangle defining the space owned by a given letter, and not the dimension of the letter itself. Type sizes are usually given in points - but European type sizes are sometimes given in Didot points, which are 7% larger than the points used in Britain and North America. (return to top)

Bowl The generally round or elliptical forms which are the basic body shape of letters such as C, G, 0 in the uppercase, and b, c, e, o, p in the lowercase. Also called eye. (return to top)

Bracket The joining of the stem of a letter to the serif. This is also referred to as a fillet. The term bracket is, however, readily understood in the sense of its meaning as a support. (return to top)

Cap Height The distance from baseline to cap line of an alphabet, which is the approximate height of the uppercase letters. It is often less, but sometimes greater, than the height of the ascending lowercase letters. See also baseline and x-height. (return to top)

Chancery A dash of italic letterforms, generally distinguished by lengthened and curved extenders. Many, but not all, chancery letterforms are also swash forms. (return to top)

Contrast In the analysis of letterforms, this usually refers to the degree of contrast between the thick and thin strokes of a given letter. In faces such as Gill Sans and Helvetica, there is no contrast. In Neoclassical and Romantic faces such as Bell and Bodoni, the contrast is high. (return to top)

Counter The white space enclosed by a letterform, whether wholly enclosed, as in d or o, or partially, as in c or m. (return to top)

Crossbar or cross-stroke A horizontal stroke connecting two stems as in A and H, or a simple stroke as in f and t. (return to top)

Descender The stem of a lowercase letter projecting below the x-height. (return to top)

Dingbat A typographical character subject to scorn because it has no apparent relation to the alphabet. Many dingbats are pictograms - tiny pictures of telephones, skiers, airplanes, churches, and the like, used in the travel industry. Others are more abstract. (return to top)

Dpi Dots per inch Linear measurement used to express the resolution of typesetters and laser printers. (return to top)

Ear The stroke attached to the bowl of the lowercase g. Some typographers use the same term for the lowercase r. (return to top)

Elevated Cap A large initial capital or versal set on the same baseline as the first line of the text. (return to top)

Em Space In linear measure, a distance equal to the type size, and in square measure, the square of the type size. Thus an em is 12 pt (or a 12 pt square) in 12 pt type. Also called mutton. (return to top)

En Space Half an em. To avoid misunderstanding when instructions are given orally, typographers often speak of ems as muttons and ens as nuts. (return to top)

Extenders The parts of the letterform that extend above the midline, as in b and d. (return to top)

Family All variants and sizes of one design, or style, of type (weight, width, roman, italic, boldface, etc.). (return to top)

Folio In bibliography, a page or leaf; but in typography, a folio is normally a typeset page number, not the page itself.(return to top)

Font A selection of characters of one size and design of type. (return to top)

Gothic Traditionally a term describing the lettering style of northern Europe during the period when Johann Gutenberg developed movable type, adapted as the first type. In the United States, since the 1830s, the term applied to Sans Serif types issued by European typefounders after 1820. The term is never used, however, to describe the sans serif types such as Futura, circa 1926. (return to top)

Grotesque The European term for Sans Serif styles American printers call gothic. In England the abbreviation, grot, is frequently used. (return to top)

H & J Hyphenation and justification; the determination of line breaks and, if allowed or needed, hyphenation points within words. (return to top)

Humanist Humanist letterforms are letterforms originating among the humanists of the Italian Renaissance. They are of two kinds: Roman forms based on Carolingian script, and italic forms, which occur for the first time in Italy in the fifteenth century. Humanist letterforms show the clear trace of a broad-nib pen held by a right-handed scribe. They have a modulated stroke and a humanist axis. (return to top)

Humanist Axis An oblique stroke axis reflecting the natural inclination of the writing hand. (return to top)

Italic A sloped or cursive variation of Roman. In most cases this represents a complementary style of the upright letter, although some of the lowercase letters may change form slightly and the serif structure is different. Modern usage requires an italic to accompany a roman in most types designed for continuous reading. (return to top)

Justify To adjust the length of the line so that it is flush left and right on the measure. Type is commonly set either justified or FL/RR (flush left, ragged right). (return to top)

Kern Part of a letter that extends into the space of another. In many alphabets, the Roman f has a kern to the right, the Roman j a kern to the left. As a verb, to kern means to alter the fit of certain letter combinations - TA or VA, for example - so that the limb of one projects over or under the body or limb of the other. (return to top)

Lead Originally a horizontal strip of soft metal used for vertical spacing between lines of type. Now meaning the vertical distance from the baseline of one line to the baseline of the next. Also called leading. (return to top)

Ligature Two or more letters tied into a single character. (return to top)

Link The stroke connecting the bowl and the loop of the lowercase g. (return to top)

Measure The standard length of the line; i.e., column width or width of the overall typeblock, usually measured in picas. (return to top)

Oblique A sloped Roman in which the characters retain their Roman shapes. The inclination is generally less than in a normal italic. The oblique characters are seen more frequently in the Sans Serif styles.(return to top)

Outline Font A digital font in which the stored information defines points on the edges of each character. (return to top)

Pagination The process of dividing running text into pages, including placement of footnotes, illustrations, and tables. (return to top)

Pica A unit of measurement equaling 12 points, or 1/6 inch, in the Anglo-American point system. The Didot equivalent of a pica is called cicero. (return to top)

Pixel A dot in a raster image which can be turned on (printed) or off (not printed) to form the image. (return to top)

Point A unit of measurement equaling .01383 inch, the basis of the Anglo-American point system. The Didot equivalent, called corps, measures .01483 inch. (return to top)

Reflexive A type of serif that simultaneously stops a main stroke and implies its continuation. Reflexive serifs are typical of Roman faces. They always involve a sudden, small stoppage and reversal of the pen's direction, and more often than not they are bilateral. See also transitive. (return to top)

Resolution In digital typography, resolution is the fineness of the grain of the typeset image. It is usually measured in dots per inch (dpi). Laser printers, for example, generally have a resolution between 300 and 1000 dpi, and typesetting machines a resolution substantially greater than 1000 dpi. But other factors besides resolution affect the apparent roughness or fineness of the typeset image. These factors include the inherent design of the characters, the skill with which they are digitized, the hinting technology used to compensate for coarse rasterization, and the type of film or paper on which they are reproduced. (return to top)

Roman An upright letter, as opposed to a sloped, or italic, letter. The term also describes a style of type based upon Italian manuscript hands of the fifteenth century (return to top)

San Serif From the Latin sans serif without serifs. (return to top)

Serif The beginning or terminal stroke drawn at right angle or obliquely across the arm, stem, or tail of a letter. (return to top)

Slab Serif An abrupt or adnate serif of the same thickness as the main stroke. Slab serifs are a hallmark of the Egyptian and Clarendon types: two groups of Realist faces produced in substantial numbers since the early nineteenth century. Memphis, Rockwell, and Serifa are examples.(return to top)

Slope The angle of inclination of the stems and extenders of letters. Not to be confused with axis. (return to top)

Stem A main stroke that is more or less straight, not part of a bowl. The letter o has no stem; the letter I consists of stem and serifs alone. (return to top)

Swash A decorative, flourished variant of a standard italic letter, more frequently seen in capitals than in lowercase. (return to top)

Titling Type A font of capitals, occupying most of the body of the type. It follows that a 24-point titling type is considerably larger in face than a corresponding 24-point, in which there is a lowercase alphabet. (return to top)

Transitive A type of serif which flows directly into or out of the main stroke without stopping to reverse direction, typical of many italics. Transitive serifs are usually unilateral: they extend only to one side of the stem. See also reflexive. (return to top)

U&lc Upper and lowercase: the normal form for setting text in the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. (return to top)

Weight A letter's relative amount of blackness. Proper terminology for weight has never been precisely determined. In types used for continuous reading, two weights are generally used the original design, called either regular or light, and a boldface. Square serif and sans serif types have as many as eight or nine different weights, differently described by each manufacturer. Most likely this imprecision can never be corrected. (return to top)

Word Space The space between words. When type is set FL/RR, the word space may be of fixed size, but when the type is justified, the word space must be elastic. (return to top)

WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get; a terminal which shows a reasonably accurate visual representation of the printed output to be produced from a file. (return to top)

X-height The distance between the baseline and the midline of an alphabet, which is normally the approximate height of the unextended lowercase letters - a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z - and of the torso of b, d, h, k, p, q, y. The relation of x-height to cap height, and the relation of x-height to length of extenders, are two important characteristics Latin typeface. See also baseline and cap height. (return to top)