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From: [e-mail] (Norman Walsh)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts,news.answers
Subject: comp.fonts FAQ.1b.General-Info
Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts.
         It addresses both general font questions and questions that
     are specific to a particular platform.
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Date: 7 Dec 92 19:13:33 GMT
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Archive-name: fonts-faq/part02
Version: 1.1.1.

6.3. Ligatures

   A ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or
   printed as a unit.  Generally, ligatures replace characters that
   occur next to each other when they share common components.
   Ligatures are a subset of a more general class of figures called
   "contextual forms."  Contextual forms describe the case where the
   particular shape of a letter depends on its context (surrounding
   letters, whether or not it's at the end of a line, etc.).

   One of the most common ligatures is "fi".  Since the dot above a
   lowercase 'I' interferes with the loop on the lowercase 'F', when 'f'
   and 'i' are printed next to each other, they are combined into a
   single figure with the dot absorbed into the 'f'.

   An example of a more general contextual form is the greek lowercase
   sigma.  When typesetting greek, the selection of which 'sigma' to use
   is determined by whether or not the letter occurs at the end of the
   word (i.e., the final position in the word).

   Amanda Walker <[e-mail]> provides the following discussion of
   ligatures:

   Ligatures were originally used by medieval scribes to conserve space
   and increase writing speed.  A 14th century manuscript, for example,
   will include hundreds of ligatures (this is also where "accents" came
   from).  Early typefaces used ligatures in order to emulate the
   appearance of hand-lettered manuscripts.  As typesetting became more
   automated, most of these ligatures fell out of common use.  It is
   only recently that computer based typesetting has encouraged people
   to start using them again (although 'fine art' printers have used
   them all along).  Generally, ligatures work best in typefaces which
   are derived from calligraphic letterforms.  Also useful are
   contextual forms, such as swash capitals, terminal characters, and so
   on.

   A good example of a computer typeface with a rich set of ligatures is
   Adobe Caslon (including Adobe Caslon Expert).  It includes:

       Upper case, lower case, small caps, lining numerals, oldstyle
       numerals, vulgar fractions, superior & inferior numerals,
       swash italic caps, ornaments, long s, and the following ligatures:

       ff fi fl ffi ffl Rp ct st Sh Si Sl SS St (where S=long s)

   [Ed: Another common example is the Computer Modern Roman typeface that
   is provided with TeX. this family of fonts include the ff, fi, fl,
   ffi, and ffl ligatures which TeX automatically uses when it finds
   these letters juxtaposed in the text.]

   While there are a large number number of possible ligatures, generally
   only the most common ones are actually provided.  In part, this is
   because the presence of too many alternate forms starts reducing
   legibility.  A case in point is Luxeuil Miniscule, a highly-ligatured
   medieval document hand which is completely illegible to the untrained
   eye (and none too legible to the trained eye, either :)).

   Don Hosek offers the following insight into ligatures:

     Ligatures were used in lead type, originally in imitation of
     calligraphic actions (particularly in Greek which retained an
     excessive number of ligatures in printed material as late as the
     19th century), but as typefaces developed, ligatures were retained
     to improve the appearance of certain letter combinations. In some
     cases, it was used to allow certain letter combinations to be more
     closely spaced (e.g., "To" or "Vo") and were referred to as
     "logotypes". In other cases, the designs of two letters were merged
     to keep the overall spacing of words uniform. Ligatures are provided
     in most contemporary fonts for exactly this reason.

   Liam Quim makes the following observations:

     The term ligature should only be used to describe joined letters in
     printing, not letters that overlap in manuscripts.

     Many (not all) accents came from the practice of using a tilde or
     other mark to represent an omitted letter, so that for example the
     Latin word `Dominus' would be written dns, with a tilde or bar over
     the n.  This is an abbreviation, not a ligature.

     Most ligatures vanished during the 15th and 16th Centuries.  It was
     simply too much work to use them, and it increased the price of book
     production too much.

   [Ed: there is no "complete" set of ligatures.]

6.4. Standard Laser Printer Fonts

  Postscript printers with 17 fonts have:

    Courier, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, Courier-Oblique, Helvetica,
    Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-BoldOblique, Helvetica-Narrow,
    Helvetica-Narrow-Bold, Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique,
    Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique, Helvetica-Oblique, Symbol, Times-Bold,
    Times-BoldItalic, Times-Italic, Times-Roman

  Postscript printers with 35 fonts have:

    All of the above, plus the following:

    ZapfChancery-MediumItalic, ZapfDingbats, AvantGarde-Book,
    AvantGarde-BookOblique, AvantGarde-Demi, AvantGarde-DemiOblique,
    Bookman-Demi, Bookman-DemiItalic, Bookman-Light, Bookman-LightItalic,
    NewCenturySchlbk-Bold, NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic,
    NewCenturySchlbk-Italic, NewCenturySchlbk-Roman, Palatino-Bold,
    Palatino-BoldItalic, Palatino-Italic, Palatino-Roman

  HP LaserJet printers (II, IIP)

    Courier 10, Courier 12, LinePrinter 16.66, ...

  HP LaserJet printers (III, IIIP)

    All of the above, plus the following:

    Scalable Times Roman and Scalable Univers using Compugraphic's
    Intellifont hinted font format.

  SPARCPrinters have the basic 35 font plus four scaled faces of each of
  Bembo, Gill Sans, Rockwell, Lucida, Lucida Bright, Sans and Typewriter,
  giving a total of 57 fonts, all in the F3 format.

6.5. Glossary

   [ I ripped this right out of the manual I wrote for Sfware.  If you have
     comments, improvements, suggestions, please tell me... ]

   baseline

      The baseline is an imaginary line upon which each character rests.
      Characters that appear next to each other are (usually) lined up so
      that their baselines are on the same level.  Some characters extend
      below the baseline (``g'' and ``j'', for example) but most rest on
      it.

   bitmap

      A bitmap is an array of dots. If you imagine a sheet of graph paper
      with some squares colored in, a bitmap is a compact way of
      representing to the computer which squares are colored and which are
      not.

      In a bitmapped font, every character is represented as a pattern of
      dots in a bitmap. The dots are so small (300 or more dots-per-inch,
      usually) that they are indistinguishable on the printed page.

   character

      (1) The smallest component of written language that has semantic value.
      Character refers to the abstract idea, rather than a specific shape (see
      also glyph), though in code tables some form of visual representation is
      essential for the reader's understanding.  (2) The basic unit of
      encoding for the Unicode character encoding, 16 bits of information.
      (3) Synonym for "code element".  (4) The English name for the
      ideographic written elements of Chinese origin.

   download

      Downloading is the process of transferring information from one
      device to another.  This transferral is called downloading when the
      transfer flows from a device of (relatively) more power to one of
      (relatively) less power.  Sending new fonts to your printer so that
      it ``learns'' how to print characters in that font is called
      downloading.

   font

      A particular collection of characters of a typeface with unique
      parameters in the 'Variation vector', a particular instance of values
      for orientation, size, posture, weight, etc., values.  The word font or
      fount is derived from the word foundry, where, originally, type was cast.
      It has come to mean the vehicle which holds the typeface character
      collection.  A font can be metal, photographic film, or electronic media
      (cartridge, tape, disk).

   glyph

      (1) The actual shape (bit pattern, outline) of a character image.  For
      example, an italic 'a' and a roman 'a' are two different glyphs
      representing the same underlying character.  In this strict sense, any
      two images which differ in shape constitute different glyphs.  In this
      usage, "glyph" is a synonym for "character image", or simply "image".
      (2) A kind of idealized surface form derived from some combination of
      underlying characters in some specific context, rather than an actual
      character image.  In this broad usage, two images would constitute the
      same glyph whenever they have essentially the same topology (as in
      oblique 'a' and roman 'a'), but different glyphs when one is written
      with a hooked top and the other without (the way one prints an 'a' by
      hand).  In this usage, "glyph" is a synonym for "glyph type," where
      glyph is defined as in sense 1.

   hints

      When a character is described in outline format the outline has
      unlimited resolution.  If you make it ten times as big, it is just as
      accurate as if it were ten times as small.

      However, to be of use, we must transfer the character outline to a
      sheet of paper through a device called a raster image processor
      (RIP). The RIP builds the image of the character out of lots of
      little squares called picture elements (pixels).

      The problem is, a pixel has physical size and can be printed only as
      either black or white. Look at a sheet of graph paper. Rows and
      columns of little squares (think: pixels). Draw a large `O' in the
      middle of the graph paper. Darken in all the squares touched by the
      O. Do the darkened squares form a letter that looks like the O you
      drew? This is the problem with low resolution (300 dpi). Which pixels
      do you turn on and which do you leave off to most accurately
      reproduce the character?

      All methods of hinting strive to fit (map) the outline of a character
      onto the pixel grid and produce the most pleasing/recognizable
      character no matter how coarse the grid is.

   kerning

      (noun): That portion of a letter which extends beyond its width,
      that is, the letter shapes that overhang - the projection of a
      character beyond its sidebearings.

      (verb): The function of adjusting the intercharacter spacing in
      character groups (words) to improve their appearance.  Some letter
      combinations (``AV'' and ``To'', for example) appear farther apart
      than others because of the shapes of the individual letters.

      Many sophisticated word processors move these letter combinations
      closer together automatically.

   outline font/format

      See 'scalable font'

   scalable font

      A scalable font, unlike a bitmapped font, is defined mathematically
      and can be rendered at any requested size (within reason).

   softfont

      A softfont is a bitmapped or scalable description of a typeface or
      font.  They can be downloaded to your printer and used just like any
      other printer font.  Unlike built-in and cartridge fonts, softfonts
      use memory inside your printer.  Downloading a lot of softfonts may
      reduce the printers ability to construct complex pages.

   symbol set

      The symbol set of a font describes the relative positions of
      individual characters within the font.  Since there can only be 256
      characters in most fonts, and there are well over 256 different
      characters used in professional document preparation, there needs to
      be some way to map characters into positions within the font.  The
      symbol set serves this purpose.  It identifies the ``map'' used to
      position characters within the font.

   typeface

      The features by which a character's design is recognized, hence the word
      face.  Within the Latin language group of graphic shapes are the
      following forms: Uncial, Blackletter, Serif, Sans Serif, Scripts, and
      Decorative.  Each form characterizes one or more designs.  Example:
      Serif form contains four designs called Old Style, Transitional, Modern,
      and Slab Serif designs.  The typeface called Bodoni is a Modern design,
      while Times Roman is a Transitional design.

7. Bibliography / Other Resources

  Editors note: the following books have been suggested by readers of
  comp.fonts.  They are listed in no particular order.  I have lost the
  citations for some of the submissions.  If you wrote a review that
  appears below and you aren't credited, please let norm
  <[e-mail]> know.

  I have decided that this is the best section for pointers to other
  font resources (specs and other documents, for example).  These appear
  after the traditional bibliographic entries.  As usual I will happily
  accept entries for this section.  As of 9/92, the only files listed
  are the TrueType font information files available from Microsoft

7.1. The Bibliography

  _The Mac is Not a Typewriter_, Robin Williams, Peachpit Press.

    A good, clear explanation of what typography is, and how to get it from
    your computer. Mac-specific, but full of excellent general advice. I
    think there's also a PC version. Available at most computer bookstores

  _Rhyme and Reason: A Typographic Novel_, Erik Spiekermann.

  _Typographical attitude!_, H. Berthold AG, ISBN 3-9800722-5-8.

  _Printing Types_ (2 vols), Daniel Berkely Updike, Dover Press.

    Affordable edition of the most readable history of type, lots of
    illustrations.

    Notes: it has been suggested that the Dover edition was 3 volumes,
    paperback, and the Harvard U. P. editions were 2 volumes hardback.
    It appears that the Dover edition is out of print.  Collectible HUP
    editions are not cheap although later HUP editions may be had.  Most
    libraries have later HUP and Dover editions.  If someone knows of
    a source, please pass it along.

  _The Art of Hand Lettering_, Helm Wotzkow, Dover Press, reprint from 1952.

  _Looking Good In Print_, Roger C. Parker, Ventana Press,
  ISBN: 0-940087-32-4.

    Well, as a beginner's book, [it] isn't bad. I can't say that I agree
    with the author's tastes all the time, but he at least gives some good
    examples. Also there are some nice _Publish_-style makeovers.
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>

  _Book Design: A Practical Introduction_, Douglas Martin, Van Nostrand
  Reinhold, New York: 1989. 206pp.

    Along with Jan White's book (see below), this provides a fairly
    complete guide to book design.  Martin's book is somewhat more
    conservative in outlook and also reflects his UK background.
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>

  _Digital Typography: An Introduction to Type and Composition for Computer
  System Design_, Richard Rubinstein, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts:
  1988. 340pp.

    An interesting, technological approach to typography which is worth
    reading although not necessarily always worth believing. A not
    insubstantial portion of the text is dedicated to representing type on
    a CRT display and Rubinstein devotes some time to expressing
    characteristics of typography numerically.
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>

  _Graphic Design for the Electronic Age_, Jan V. White, Watson-Guptill
  Publications, New York: 1988. 212pp.

    A good handbook for document design. In a well-organized approach,
    White covers the principles for laying out most of the typographics
    features of a technical document. White is a bit overeager to embrace
    sans-serif types and in places his layout ideas seem a bit garish, but
    it's still a quite worthwhile book.
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>

  _Xerox Publishing Standards: A Manual of Style and Design_, Watson-Guptill
  Publications, New York: 1988. 400pp.

    Overall, a disappointing book. It is divided into four sections of
    widely varying intent: ``Publishing Process,'' ``Document
    Organization,'' ``Writing and Style'' and ``Visual Design.'' None of
    them is really adequate for the task and all are highly centered on the
    Xerox method for publishing. As a guide to Xerox' process, it succeeds,
    but as a manual for general use, it falls far short. In print.
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>

  _Methods of Book Design (3rd edition)_, Hugh Williamson, Yale University
  Press, New Haven: 1983. 408pp.

    It is a bit out-of-date as regards technology, but on issues relating
    purely to design it is comprehensive and definitive.  Well, I suppose
    it could be argued that printing technology influences design -- e.g.
    some types look fine in metal but lousy in digital imagesetting -- and
    therefore a book that is out-of-date in technology can't really be
    "definitive" in matters of design either. In any event, _Methods_
    is more than adequate for a beginner's needs.  My paper-bound copy
    (ISBN 0-300-03035-5) was $13.95; cheap at twice the price!
    Cameron Smith <[e-mail]>

  _The Thames & Hudson Manual of typography_, Rauri McLean, Thames & Hudson

    An excellent book if you start getting more interested in type.  Look
    for Rauri McLean's other books after this one...
    Liam R.E. Quim <[e-mail]>


  _Typography and Why it matters_, Fernand Baudin.

    There is no better introduction than [it].  It's not a primer on
    subjects such as "what does Avant Garde look like," or "This is a good
    font for books." It is a good primer on the things you need to know
    before the rest should be considered. He's a lovely writer, to boot.

    [My copy is at work, so I may have munged the title--look up Baudin
    in "Books in Print" and improvise :-)]

    Ari Davidow <[e-mail]>

  _Better Type_, Betty Binns

    It's definitely not a lightweight beginner's introduction, but I've
    found [it] to be indispensable.  It's a large-format hardcover, but
    you can find it remaindered for cheap if you look around.  The book
    goes into great detail about how factors like line spacing, line
    length, point size, and design of typeface (evenness of stroke
    weight, x-height, etc.) affect readability.  When you've gotten the
    basics out of the way and want to learn more about the fine nuances
    of type color, this book is an absolute must.
    David Mandl <[e-mail]>


  _Printing Types: An Introduction..._, S. Lawson, (revised) 1990

    I'd also recommend Alexander S. Lawson's books especially /Printing
    Types: An Intro.../ (revised), 1990, which includes electronic types
    now.
    Bill Ricker <[e-mail]>

  _Twentieth Century Type Designers_, Sebastian Carter, 1987

    Discusses adaptaters of old faces to machine caster and film/laser,
    as well as new works.
    Bill Ricker <[e-mail]>

  _Tally of Types_, Stanley Morrison, Cambridge University Press

    A keepsake for CUP on the Monotype fonts he'd acquired for them when he
    was Type Advisor to both Brit.Monotype & CUP (Cambridge University Press,
    Cambs.UK), which discusses his hindsight on some of the great revival
    fonts and some of the better new fonts.
    Bill Ricker <[e-mail]>

  _Chicago Manual of Style_ (University of Chicago Press, 1982;
                             ISBN 0-226-10390-0).

    The chapter on Design and Typography is most directly relevant, but there
    are a lot of hints scattered all through the Chicago Manual on making your
    words more readable and your pages more attractive.
    Stan Brown <[e-mail]>

7.2.1. (En)Coding Standards

  _Unicode Consortium; The Unicode Standard, volumes 1 and 2, Worldwide
  Character Encoding_, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

  Unicode consortium e-mail address is:

       [e-mail]

  To obtain more information on Unicode or to order their printed material
  and/or diskettes contact:

       Steven A. Greenfield
       Unicode Office Manager
       1965 Charleston Road
       Mountain View, CA 94043
       Tel. [phone]
       Fax. [phone]

  _Xerox Character Code Standard_, Xerox Corp., Xerox Systems Institute,
  475 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA 94086

7.2.2. TrueType

 George Moore <[e-mail]> announces the following information
 regarding TrueType fonts:

   *-[Quote]-----------------------------------------------------------*

   I am pleased to announce that there is now one central location for all
   official Microsoft TrueType information available on the Internet.
   The 9 files listed below are available for anonymous ftp access on
   ftp.uu.net (137.39.1.9) in the /vendor/microsoft/TrueType-Info
   directory.  The most important of those files is the TrueType Font Files
   Specifications, a 400 page book which describes in excruciating detail
   how to build a TrueType font.  Other information is also available in
   the same directory and other files will be added from time to time.

   For those people who do not have ftp access to the Internet can find the
   same information available for downloading on Compuserve in the
   Microsoft developer relations forum (GO MSDR) in the TrueType library.

   Please be aware that the TrueType specifications is a copyrighted work
   of Microsoft and Apple and can not be resold for profit.

   -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
   TrueType developer information files on ftp.uu.net:

   1. ttspec1.zip
      ttspec2.zip
      ttspec3.zip

     The TrueType Specification:

     These three compressed files contain the "TrueType Font Files
     Specifications", a 400 page book complete with illustrations which
     details how to construct a TrueType font from scratch (or build a tool
     to do so), the TrueType programming language, and the complete format
     of each sub-table contained in the .TTF file.  These documents are
     stored in Word for Windows 2.0 format and require Windows 3.1 for
     printing.  See the "readme.doc" (in ttspec1.zip) for printing
     instructions.  Requires 2.5MB of disk space after uncompression.

     This manual is a superset of the similar specifications from Apple and
     has added information specific to Windows that is not present in the
     Apple version.

   2. ttfdump.zip

     An MS-DOS executable which will dump the contents of a TrueType font
     out in a human-readable fashion.  It allows you to dump the entire
     font, or just specific sub-tables.  This tool, combined with the
     specifications above, allows very effective debugging or exploration
     of any TrueType font.  For example, to dump the contents of the 'cmap'
     (character code to glyph index mapping) table, enter:

     ttfdump fontname.ttf -tcmap -nx

     Entering "ttfdump" with no options will give you a help message.

   3. ttfname.zip

     Example C source code on how to parse the contents of a TrueType font.
     Although this particular example will open up the file and locate the
     font name contained within the 'name' table, it could be readily
     adapted to parse any other structure in the file.  This compressed zip
     file also contains many useful include files which have pre-defined
     structures set up for the internal tables of a TrueType font file.
     This code may be useful for developers who wish to parse the TrueType
     data stream returned by the GetFontData() API in Windows 3.1.

   4. tt-win.zip

     A 31 page Word for Windows 2.0 document which is targeted for the
     Windows developer who is interested in learning about some of the
     capabilities TrueType adds to Windows 3.1.  Contains many
     illustrations.

   5. embeddin.zip

     A text file which describes all of the information necessary for a
     Windows developer to add TrueType font embedding capabilities to their
     application.  Font embedding allows the application to bundle the
     TrueType fonts that were used in that document and transport it to
     another platform where the document can be viewed or printed
     correctly.

   6. tt-talk.zip

     The TrueType Technical Talks 1 and 2.  These text files describe some
     of the things that are happening with TrueType behind the scenes in
     Windows 3.1.  The first document walks the reader through all of the
     steps that occur from when the user first presses the key on the
     keyboard until that character appears on the screen (scaling, hinting,
     drop out control, caching and blitting).  The second talk describes
     one of the unique features of TrueType called non-linear scaling which
     allows the font vendor to overcome some of the physical limitations of
     low resolution output devices.

   7. lucida.zip

     This text file contains useful typographic information on the 22
     Lucida fonts which are contained in the Microsoft TrueType Font Pack
     for Windows.  It gives pointers on line-layout, mixing and matching
     fonts in the family and a little history on each typeface.  This
     information was written by the font's designers, Chuck Bigelow & Kris
     Holmes.

8. Rules of Thumb

  It is difficult to set out guidelines for font usage, because almost
  any rule can be brilliantly broken under the right circumstances.

8.1. General guidelines:

  Never lose track of the kind of work you're doing. An effect that
  would ruin a newsletter might be just the thing for a record cover.
  Know when you can safely sacrifice legibility for artistic effect.

  Keep in mind the final reproduction process you'll be using.  Some
  effects (like reversed type, white on black) can be hard to read off
  an ordinary 300-dpi laser, but will work if finals are done on a
  high-resolution printer, such as a Linotronic. Will the pages be
  photocopied? Offset? Onto rough paper, shiny paper?  All these factors
  can and should influence your choice of fonts and how you use them.

  Running some comparative tests is a good idea. Better to blow off a
  few sheets of laser paper now than to see a problem after thousands of
  copies are made.

  No one can teach you font aesthetics; it must be learned by example.
  Look at beautiful magazines, posters, books with wide eyes, so that
  you can see how it's done. Examine ugly printed matter critically and
  consider why it's hard to read.

8.2.  Good rules of thumb:

  If you need a condensed font, find one that was designed that way,
  rather than scaling an existing font down to a percentage.  Any
  scaling distorts a font's design; excessive scaling interferes with
  legibility - this goes for widening as well as narrowing. Extended
  faces do exist, although they aren't as common as condensed ones.

  Many people feel that bold or italic type, or type in ALL CAPS, is
  more legible: "This is the most important part of the newsletter,
  let's put it in bold." In fact, legibility studies show that such type
  is actually harder to read in bulk. Keep the text in a normal style
  and weight, and find another way to emphasize it - box it, illustrate
  it, run it in color, position it focally.

  Too much reverse type - white on black - is hard on the eyes. It can
  be a nice effect if used sparingly. Don't reverse a serif font, though
  - its details will tend to fill in. Stick to reversing bold
  sans-serifs, and remember to space them out a bit more than usual.

  It is always safest to use a plain serif font for large amounts of
  text. Because Times is widely used, it doesn't mean it should be
  avoided. Fonts like Palatino, Times, Century Old Style are deservedly
  popular because people can read a lot of text set in such faces
  without strain.

  Don't expect anyone to read extensive text set in a condensed font.

  As point size gets bigger, track tighter, and (if the software allows)
  reduce the spacebands as well. A spaceband in a headline size
  (anything over 14 point) should be about as wide as a letter "i".

  If you only have a few large headlines, hand-kerning the type, pair by
  pair, can make the end result much more pleasing.  Besides, working
  with fonts this closely makes them familiar.

  Column width and justification are major elements in design.  The
  narrower the column, the smaller the type can be; wide rows of small
  type are very hard to read. Often it's a better idea to set narrow
  columns flush left rather than justified, otherwise large gaps can
  fall where hyphenation isn't possible.

  Use curly quotes.

  Don't put two spaces at the end of a line (.  ) instead of (. ) when
  using a proportionally spaced font.

9. Acknowledgements

  The moderators would like to express their gratitude to the whole
  community for providing insightful answers to innumerable questions.  In
  particular, the following people (listed alphabetically) have contributed
  directly to this FAQ (apologies, in advance if anyone has been
  forgotten):

    Masumi Abe <[e-mail]>
    Tim Bradshaw <[e-mail]>
    Stan Brown <[e-mail]>
    Terry Carroll <[e-mail]>
    Ari Davidow <[e-mail]>
    Pat Farrell <[e-mail]>
    Yossi Gil <[e-mail]>
    Kesh Govinder <[e-mail]>
    Rick Heli <[e-mail]>
    Gary <[e-mail]>
    Berthold K.P. Horn <[e-mail]>
    Don Hosek <[e-mail]>
    Bharathi Jagadeesh <[e-mail]>
    David Mandl <[e-mail]>
    Kate McDonnell <?>
    George Moore <[e-mail]>
    Robert Morris <[e-mail]>
    Stephen Peters <[e-mail]>
    Jim Reese <[e-mail]>
    Bill Ricker <[e-mail]>
    Liam R.E. Quim <[e-mail]>
    Henry Schneiker <?>
    Cameron Smith <[e-mail]>
    Amanda Walker <[e-mail]>

10. A Brief Introduction to Typography

    Space, time, and bandwidth are too limiting to provide a complete
    introduction to typography in this space.  I'd be very willing to make
    one available for anonymous ftp, if you want to write one, but I'm not
    going to write it--I have neither the time nor the expertise.  However,
    the following description of Times, Helvetica, and Courier will suffice
    for a start.  For more information, several books on typography are
    listed in the bibliography.

    Laurence Penney <[e-mail]> offers the following
    description of Times, Helvetica, and Courier:

    Times is a typeface designed in the 1930s for the Times newspaper in
    London and is now used widely in books, magazines and DTP. Its design
    is based on the typographical principles evolved since Roman times
    (upper case) and the 16th century (lower case). It is called a
    TRANSITIONAL typeface, after the typefaces of the 17th century which it
    resembles.  Like all typefaces designed for typesetting large
    quantities of text, it is proportionally spaced: the i takes about a
    third the width of an M.  Personally I don't like Times too much and
    prefer the more elegant Garamond and Baskerville, but these will
    probably cost you money...  Note: The Transitionals came after the Old
    Styles (like Garamond) and before the Moderns (like Bodoni).

    Helvetica is an example of a SANS-SERIF typeface. These first appeared
    in the late 19th century in Germany and flourished in the 1920s and
    30s, when they were regarded as the future of typography.  It's more a
    geometric design than the humanist design of Gill Sans, but less
    geometric than Avant Garde and Futura. To my mind it lacks elegance,
    and Adrian Frutiger's Univers shows how this kind of typeface should be
    done. (Just compare the B, R, Q, a, g of Univers and Helvetica to see
    what I mean -- and don't you just love Univers's superbly interpreted
    ampersand ?!) Helvetica is one of the few fonts that is improved by its
    BOLD version.

    Another interesting approach to sans-serif is Optima, by Hermann Zapf,
    which keeps the stroke-weight variations which sans-serifs usually
    reject. Use sans-serif fonts for the same applications as Times, above,
    but where you're less concerned with elegance, and more with a
    functional appearance - they're generally reckoned to be slightly less
    legible than good serifed fonts. They're also very suitable for
    display work.

    Courier is a typeface derived from typewriter styles. It should ONLY be
    used when you want to simulate this effect (e.g. when writing letters
    Courier usually appears "friendlier" than Times). Like all typewriter
    fonts, it is MONOSPACED (characters all have the same width) and is
    thus suitable for typesetting computer programs. However there are
    nicer looking monospace fonts than Courier (which has oversize serifs),
    that still remain distinct from the text fonts like Times and
    Helvetica. A good one is OCR-B, designed by Frutiger. Note that
    monospaced fonts are less economical on space than proportional fonts.

    [ed: Following the original posting of this message, Laurence Penny and
    Jason Kim <[e-mail]> discussed the issue privately.  The
    following summary of their discussion may serve to clarify some of the
    more subtle points.  My thanks to Laurence and Jason for allowing me to
    include this in the FAQ.]

    ===

    LP-1> The Transitionals came after the Old Styles (like Garamond) and
    before the Moderns (like Bodoni).

    JK> Not necessarily true!  Ideologically, yes, but not chronologically.
    I believe, for example, that Bodoni predates New Century Schoolbook or
    some such typeface.

    LP-2> What I meant by "X came after Y" was "the first examples of X
    appeared after the first examples of Y" -- it's called precis. Some
    people still make steam trains, but you can still say "Steam engines
    came before diesels." This is chronological, not ideological in my
    book.

    ===

    LP-1> Another interesting approach to sans-serif is Optima, by Hermann
    Zapf, which keeps the stroke-weight variations which sans-serifs
    usually reject. Use sans-serif fonts for the same applications as
    Times, above, but where you're less concerned with elegance, and more
    with a functional appearance - they're generally reckoned to be
    slightly less legible than good seriffed fonts. They're also very
    suitable for display work.

    JK> Slightly? I have several textbooks typeset by utter fools and they
    are a pain in the ass (and eyes) to read! Please don't encourage anyone
    to use Optima (or any sans serif fonts for that matter) "for the same
    applications as Times," which, need I remind you, was designed for
    *newspaper* work!!

    LP-2> OK, maybe I was a little over-generous to Univers, Helvetica,
    etc., but I think variation is extremely important in typography. Have
    you ever read the British magazine "CAR" ? That uses Helvetica light (I
    think) in a very legible and attractive way, IMO.  I agree, though,
    Optima is crappy for text, but it's a very valuable experiment and
    looks beautiful when printed in high quality for titling, etc. And yes,
    *books* in Helvtica are generally awful.

    ===

    JK> Serifs have been scientifically shown to be a *lot* easier on the
    reader, as they guide the eyes along the lines.

    LP-2> In all tests I've seen the serifs have always won the day, but
    only with certain seriffed fonts, and fonts like Univers aren't far
    behind. The "tracking" advantage for serif fonts is reduced when you're
    talking about narrow newspaper/magazine columns.

    ===

    JK> You wrote a pretty short and partial history of type. Why ignore
    the roots of type (blackletter) as well as the climax (moderns--give an
    explanation) and subsequent 'post-modern' revivals?

    LP-2> I was just talking about the place the 3 most common DTP types
    hold in the history of typography, and a few associated pitfalls. It
    wasn't meant as a "history of typography" at all. Please feel free to
    provide such a history yourself.

    JK> I think any short list of specific faces is incomplete without
    mention of Palatino, the most popular Old Style revival in existence.

    LP-2> Do you? To my mind Palatino is grossly overused. You must agree
    it looks bad for dense text. It isn't a proper "oldstyle revival" at
    all, more of a "calligraphic interpretation" of it. Zapf designed it as
    a display face, and wasn't too concerned about lining up the serifs
    (check out the "t"). And it just *has* to be printed on 1200dpi devices
    (at least) to look good in small sizes. OK then, maybe a short list is
    incomplete without a caution NOT to use Palatino...

    JK> Also, if this is meant to be a "quick history/user guide for those
    fairly new to using fonts on desktop publishing systems," then I would
    recommend more directions about the proper uses of certain faces (e.g.,
    Goudy for shaped text, Peignot for display *only*) and styles (e.g.,
    italics for editorial comments, all-caps for basically nothing).

    LP-2> Okay, okay. I was only sharing a few ideas, not trying to write a
    book. Surely you agree that the 3 typefaces I chose are by far the most
    commonly used and abused these days? I don't think a discussion of
    Goudy or Peignot fits in very well here, unless we're hoping to make a
    very wide-ranging FAQL. Regarding styles: first, italics are used
    principally for *emphasis* (rather than bold in running text); second,
    all good books have a few small caps here and there, don't they? - all
    mine do...

    JK> Sorry if I come across as critical. I think the idea of making a
    FAQL is a good one, as is your effort. We just have to make sure it
    doesn't give any newbies the wrong impressions and further perpetuate
    the typographical morass we're facing today.

    LP-2> Sorry if I come across as defensive, but I stand by what I said
    and object to the suggestion that I am "perpetuating the typographical
    morass". (I don't know if you really intended this - apologies if you
    didn't.)

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Don Hosek offers the following additional notes:

    The "Times" in most printers is actually a newer version of the font
    than Monotype's "Times New Roman" which it is originally based on.
    Walter Tracy's _Letters of Credit_ gives an excellent history of the
    face which was based on Plantin and in the original cutting has
    metrics matching the original face almost exactly. Another interesting
    note about the face is that it is almost a completely different design
    in the bold: this is due to the fact that old-styles are difficult to
    design as a bold. Incidentally, the classification of Times as a
    transitional is not firm. It likely is placed there by some type
    taxonomists (most notably Alexander Lawson) because of the bold and a
    few minor features. Others, myself included, think of it as a old
    style. The typeface listed in the Adobe catalog as Times Europa was a
    new face commissioned in 1974 to replace the old Times (whose 50th
    birthday was this past October 3rd).

    Hermann Zapf is not particularly pleased with any of the
    phototypesetting versions of Optima. As a lead face, Optima is very
    beautiful. His typeface "World", used in the World Book Encyclopedia
    is one recutting for photocomp which improves the font somewhat. He is
    on record as saying that if he had been asked, he would have designed
    a new font for the technology.

-- END OF PART I --