h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well since leading is blank space between the lines I don't see how it relates to font design! You can have more or less leading whatever the font.

When you design a font electronically with a program such as fontographer, it's important to specify correct spacing, including leading.

I heard that the $ sign comes from the first and last letters of PESOS superimposed and modified.

Could you put in the at sign as well, and lay to rest all these tedious queries about "what is the name for the at sign".

The capital was a feature of Roman architecture:

"the uppermost member of a column or pilaster crowning the shaft and taking the weight of the entablature"

The Romans were in the habit of putting inscriptions on their capitals, hence "capital letters". The present-day Roman Serif fonts take as their model the inscription in stone on the Roman capitals, particularly one on a triumphal arch in Rome which I can't for the life of me remember the name of. Whatever the original function of the serifs, I find that Encyclopaedia Britannica says the following:

"Inconclusive tests appear to indicate that the roman face is easier to read with serifs than without them. It has been suggested, again inconclusively, that the sans serif type suffers in that its characters, when printed, tend somehow to stand out as individual letters rather than as parts of words."

So I withdraw my objection to your statement about serifs.

>Θεανθροπη AKA Graveporn AKA il viaggiatore
>When you design a font electronically with a program such as fontographer, it's important to specify correct spacing, including leading

Spacing and leading are to do with layout and typesetting, not font design as such. I would suggest that it is not 'correct' spacing that you are talking about, but default spacing. It ought to be possible to alter the leading later, when setting the text. For example, if you had two successive lines all in caps (as in eg a two-line heading), you might well want to both increase the spacing between the letters slightly and reduce the leading slightly (since caps do not have descenders).

Thanks, Gnomon. I have added a note on the @.

When you design a font you set a default lead and kern, one that should look good in most cases, relative to which adjustments are made by the word processor.

I heard that the $ sign came from the superimposition of U and S.

Like it Bels - I heard the $ sign grew out of using 'd' and 's' for dollars though you need to do it hand-written on top of each other to see how that one started.

I must put in a brief section on word breaks. I'll do that in the next couple of days.

You might also want to add something extra in the bit that mentions centring, Bels.

It's often used in menus, on wedding invitations and for the cast of characters in a play.

OK. The principle is that it only really looks good in text with a small number of short lines, well spaced apart.

I thought that this was a very well thought out piece. Admittedly I know the subject very well (I am a graphic designer) so perhaps I am not the best judge. For what it is worth, however, I feel it is a clear and easily understandable description of the subject.

My one bugbear (if you will forgive me) is the title... Typesetting for Begginers - What's the Point? Is it meant as a play on words (points, leading etc) or literally as 'what's the point?' which is how it looked before I read it. I realise I seem a bit anal, but I feel understanding how to typeset properly is massively important, especially when you see some of the dire design out there ( the 'why use one font family when you can use 20 different fonts instead' school of thought).

I don't know if I have been helpful, but as I said before, I feel it is a well thought out piece.

Hi mrs tw

Thanks - praise from an expert is praise indeed!

There's a statistic somewhere - I don't remember the exact figures - but it's something about how 90% of all the people who use a WP program use only 10% of its features. Part of the aim of the entry is to say that there _is_ a point to good typesetting, and the hope is that by demystifying the terminology a bit people will be encouraged to explore the possibilities for themselves. I thought that, as a title, just plain 'Typesetting for Beginners' would be a bit dry.

Bels

Hi all,

interesting point about the title, ho-ho.

but if that was really your intention, wouldn't the very word 'typesetting' put off a good chunk of your target audience. People probably won't even make the connection between WP and typesetting, i fear. It brings to mind images of those scenes in films that show you the headlines of half a dozen newspapers rolling of the presses at high speed. Well, in my mind, initially, anyway.

What i mean is, it doesn't appear to be a guide to 'what you can do with a document in WP', as it is.

At the same time, i think it is a rather good title.

am i helping here?

Hi spiff

Capital! I kern see your point - you have neatly underscored the problem. You are no fools cap, and at the margin your bold colophon is fully justified.

Bels, I have a reasonable grasp of the English language (ask anyone at the British English thread or its Sequel) and I have to admit that the pun in the title (What's the point) passed me by. I know what 12 point means, but "what's the point" is too engrained as a phrase and too far removed from 10pt and 12pt to make a connection. So the pun in your title is too abstruse.

Could you come up with something different? Such as "In that case", "to the point", "font of all knowledge" etc.

Gnomon, ten minutes ago you said you've drunk far too much wine. I hope it was a good vintage.

Even when I was sober, I didn't see that pun. Yes, it was reasonably good!