Typography Terms
A
Ascender:
On lowercase letters, the stroke that rises above the body of the letter (e.g., b, d, f, h, k, l, t).
Any capital letter.
Asterisk: The symbol or glyph, used to denote a footnote.
ATF: American Type Founders.
B
Back Matter: Information placed after the text in a book, commonly including an index, glossary, bibliography, and appendix.
Bad Break: A term referring to widows or orphans in text copy, or a break that doesn't make sense, causing awkward reading.
Banner: The type designed for a periodical (newspaper or magazine), sometimes referred to as a Masthead.
Barb: A type of half serif on the horizontal arms of E, F, L, and T.
Base: Also called the platform, the large background area of a piece of lead type upon which the letterform is cast.
Base Line: The invisible or imaginary line on which the body of lowercase letters and the base of all capital letters rest.
Beak: A type of half serif found on the horizontal arms of E, F, L, and T.
Bitmap: A binary representation in which a bit or set of bits corresponds to some part of an object such as an image or font.
Body Copy: Main copy block of an advertisement, as distinguished from headings, subheadings, coupons, logos, captions, and illustrations; also called body text or text.
Boldface: Type that is darker than the rest of the text with which it is used, drawing attention and adding emphasis, and “color” to a page.
Bowl: The curved stroke that encloses a space within a character. An open bowl does not meet the stem, while a closed bowl does.
Byline: Line that precedes the text of a story or article, naming the writer.
C
Caption: Word, phrase, or sentence positioned above an illustration or photograph that describes or clarifies it. If the text is beneath, it's called a legend.
Character: Single letter, number, or other symbol used to represent information.
Cold Type: The term for photo composed type, in which no heat is required for typesetting.
Colon: A punctuation mark (:) that separates the main portion of a sentence from what follows, usually a list.
Column: Area of copy that runs vertically down the page of a newspaper or magazine.
Column inch: Unit of measure in a publication by which advertising space is sold.
Column Rule: A line used between two columns of type.
Concave: Curving inward.
Comma: A punctuation mark (,) used to indicate separation of elements within a sentence.
Comp: Shortened term referring to a comprehensive layout, a close approximation to the final composition; used for client approval and printer production estimates.
Condensed type: Type compressed along the horizontal axis, resulting in a tall, thin appearance.
Convex: Curving or bulging outward.
Copperplate Engraving: An intaglio printing process where the image is engraved into copper, inked, and printed; also refers to a type style derived from this process.
Copy: All written or textural material in an advertisement or direct-mail piece, including headlines, subheadings, and body copy.
Copy Fit: The process of specifying type in a particular font intended to fit into a designed area in the final composition.
Counter: A negative space within a character that may be fully or partially enclosed.
Credit: Small text next to a photograph or illustration that indicates the artist or photographer’s name.
Cross bar: The horizontal or oblique stroke connected at both ends as in an A or H, sometimes referred to as a bar.
Crotch: The pointed space where an arm or arc meets a stem; an acute crotch is less than 90 degrees, and an obtuse crotch is greater than 90 degrees.
Curly Braces: Brackets or punctuation marks { } that are used to set apart or interject text within other text.
Cutline: One-line copy that describes an illustration, drawing, or photograph.
D
Descender: That part of a lowercase letter that extends below the main body of the letter (e.g., g, j, p, q, y).
Depth: Vertical length of a column in a newspaper or magazine, measured in inches or agate lines. An agate line measures ” in depth by one column in width. There are 14 agate lines to a column inch.
Display Type: Large, attention-grabbing type used for headlines or posters (42pt or larger).
E
EM: Unit of measure of print type equal to the square of a type letter. Most machine-set type characters are one-half an em (called an en). The actual size of an em varies, depending on the point size of the type being used.
Extender: A term used to refer to both ascenders and descenders, named such because they extend beyond the body of the font.
Eye: The counter or enclosed area at the top of the lowercase e.
F
Face: Style of type used for printing; also typeface.
Family: Variations of one primary font that have similar characteristics of serifs, strokes, proportions, and optical balance; variations may include weight or width.
Fillet: Also called bracketing, this refers to the curve of straight connection between the stroke of a letterform and the serif.
Finial: The non-serif ending added to a stroke, which is classified as ball, swash, spur, or hook; the shape of the final may taper.
Flag: Decorative, curved strokes connected to the stem of an uppercase gothic or black letter face.
Fleuron: A decorative typesetting unit that may be assembled into borders and fanciful dividers; often floral in appearance.
Flush Left: A typesetting term for the specification of line or paragraph alignment along a left-hand margin
Flush Right: A typesetting term for the specification of line or paragraph alignment along a right-hand margin
Folio: The page number; may include a type, date, or flourish that is placed with the page number on the page.
Font: Typographer’s name for the complete selection of type of one size and face. Includes all 26 letters of the alphabet (uppercase, lowercase, and small caps), numbers from 0-9, punctuation marks, and common symbols (e.g., &,$).
G
Force Justified: A type of text alignment in a column where the text is set to align with both the left and the right margins at the same time, causing white space issues.
Furniture: In typesetting, this term refers to the wood or metal spacing material that is used to fill extra spaces in the chase around handset type to assist in locking it into place.
Glyph: A single character in a typeface, including letters, numbers, and symbols.
Gothic: Of or related to a visual style reflecting the influence of the medieval period including a heavy angular condensed typeface used especially by the earliest European printers and based on handwriting used chiefly in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries; Also the name of the first sans serif font.
Gravure: Also called intaglio, the printing process in which the plate is etched and the ink lies on the resulting grooves.
Greek or Greeking: Meaningless symbols, designed to look like printed copy, that are drawn on a rough layout to show the size of the copy and where it will actually go when the layout is complete.
Grid: The underlying structure of a composition, determined by the designer, that is used to indicate column width & height, margins, gutters, type alignment, image size and placement
Gutter: Center margin or crease formed by a pair of facing pages in a book or magazine. Also, they are usually thin, between columns.
H
H&J: Refers to hyphenation and justification options in a computer software application.
Hairline stroke: The secondary stroke of a letterform that is commonly thinner than the stem stroke; this term also refers to the weight of the finest rule a typesetter can set, commonly equal to 1/4 point in width.
Hanging Cap: Also referred to as a hanging initial. A hanging cap is set larger than the body text and extends beyond the left margin of the rest of a paragraph.
Hanging Indent: A typesetting instruction used to indicate that the first line of a paragraph is set flush left while following lines are indented.
Hanging Punctuation: Punctuation set outside the margin so that the type aligns visually along the right or left side of the paragraph either flush left or flush right.
Head Margin: The space above the type, appearing on every page.
Header: The top portion of information that may be included in the head margin of a publication. It may indicate the title, the chapter name, and/or the page number or folio.
Headline: Sentence, phrase, word, or group of words set in large, bold type on a newspaper front page or above a body of text on any page of a newspaper or magazine, or printed advertisement (or featured as part of a broadcast commercial). The purpose of a headline is to attract attention and usually to encourage the reading of the following copy.
Hierarchy: Is a system of ranking and organizing elements either from most important to least important, least important to most important, or chronologically.
Hyphen: A punctuation mark (-) commonly used between parts of a compound word or between the syllables of a word when the word is divided at the end of a line of text.
Hyphenation: The convention of breaking a word according to the syllables so that it will fit on a typeset line of copy.
I
IBC: Abbreviation for the inside back cover
IFC: Abbreviation for the inside front cover
Illumination: Or to illuminate; the art of decorating letters or pages with ink and embossing techniques.
Indent: The space placed at the beginning of a line to indicate a paragraph break, or to offset a selection of text.
Index: An alphabetized reference list at the end of the text consisting of the names and topics as well as the corresponding pages on which they are found.
Inferior Character: Also called subscript; a small character or set of characters placed below the baseline of text, most commonly used to typeset chemical formulas.
Initial Cap: The first letter of body text set in a display size and decorative font intended to introduce a new section of type; intended as a design element to indicate the beginning of text
Intaglio: Also know as gravure, the method of printing in which a metal substrate is etched or engraved, and the ink lies in the incision in the plate surface before being transferred to paper.
Italic: Type style with characters slanted upward to the right, used to emphasize a word or passage.
J
Jump Head: A headline positioned at the top of a story that continues from a previous page; a jump head is usually a abbreviated version of the original title.
Justify: A typesetting term referring to text type that is aligned vertically along both the left-hand and right-hand margins.
K
Kerning: Typesetting technique that overlaps the edges of two type characters to provide the illusion of even spacing and to reduce the amount of white space between letters. Kerning is the process of adjusting the space between individual characters.
Key Characters: Identify and describe those characters whose treatment is significant in distinguishing one typeface from another. Elements to consider: A single or double-story “a” and “g”; An “e” with an oblique or horizontal crossbar; An “f” or “j” sitting on or descending below the baseline; “Q” with a short or long tail, or a tail bisecting the bowl; An “R” with a straight or curved leg.
L
Leading: Spacing between lines. The vertical space between lines of type measured from the baseline to the previous or subsequent baseline for consistency
Leg: A stroke that extends downward at less than 90 degrees is a leg, as seen on the letters k, K, and R.
Legibility: The characteristics of letters, numbers, graphics, or symbols that make it possible to differentiate one from the other and therefore convey a clear understanding of the communication.
Letterpress: The printing method in which the raised surface of the type or blocks, transfers the ink onto the paper with the application of pressure.
Letter Space: Refers to the amount of space that separates letters in a word. Additional space between letters may be added (called letter spaced) for special effect in limited situations at the designer’s discretion.
Letter spacing: Modifying the distance between the letters within a word. Letter spacing is a composition technique that helps to create lines of equal width on a page or to shorten or lengthen text.
Ligature: A combination of two or more characters that are joined into one form which are not commonly combined.
Light Face: A thin-stroked typeface in which the negative space is greater in mass then the weight of the strokes; its appearance is light and airy.
Line Length: Refers to line measure. The horizontal width of a column is the line length.
Line Spacing: Another term for leading; the space between vertical lines of type.
Lining Figures: Numerals that align against the baseline of the font and are the same height as the uppercase letterforms, unlike old style figures, which include ascenders and descenders.
Link: The stroke connecting the bowl and loop of the lowercase g.
Linotype: Hot metal typesetting system, invented by Otto Mergenthaler, that utilizes a keyboard and sets one line of type as a solid piece of lead (called a slug) when the text is input via a keyboard.
Lithography: Printing method using a flat surface in which the area to be printed is receptive to the ink and the rest of the plate is coated with a chemical that resists ink.
Logogram: A single written symbol that represents an entire work or phrase without indicating it pronunciation; 7 is a logogram that is pronounced “seven” in English and “nanatsu” in Japanese; it is a meaningful unit of language.
Logotype: The name, symbol, or trademark that is comprised of typographic characters, used to identify a company or product on all collateral materials.
Loop: The lower portion of the lowercase g.
Lowercase: Also referred to as minuscule or lc, these smaller letterforms include ascenders and descenders.
M
Main Stem: The thickest stroke of a character.
Majuscule: The capital version of a letterform.
Margin: Space between the copy and the edge of the page. The four margins are called, clockwise from top, head margin, front margin, foot margin, and inside or back margin.
Masthead: Defines the name on page one of a newspaper or periodical (also known as a nameplate).
Mean Line: The imaginary line defining the height of lowercase letters excluding ascenders, also called the x-height, body line, or waistline.
Minus: Negative space setting between typeset characters.
Minusing: Decreasing the space between typeset characters in text settings; sometimes called tracking in software applications, this affects the entire selection of text equally.
Monospacing: Refers to fonts which each character occupies the same amount of space; in monospaced type, such as that output from a typewriter, the character aligns vertically on the page regardless of whether it is an i or a w.
Monotone: Also referred to as monoline; a typeface in which all of the strokes appear to be the same thickness.
Movable type: An invention attributed to Johann Guttenberg in which each character is cast in lead or carved from wood so that it can be used multiple times for multiple printing jobs on a platen press or letterpress.
Mutt Dash: An alternative term for an em dash, also known as a long dash that is the width of an em, or the square of the point size of the font.
N
Number sign: The character #, also known as the pound sign and hash sign.
O
Offset Lithography: A printing method in which the image is transferred from the plate via a rubber roller to the sheet of paper.
Old English: The angular, condensed Gothic style of lettering favored in Germanic areas as early as 1012 CE and continuing through the mid-nineteenth century; also called black letter.
Old Style: A style of type distinguished by graceful irregularity among individual letters, bracketed serifs, and slight contrast between light and heavy strokes. Goudy Old Style
Orphan: The first line of a paragraph left at the bottom of a column of type, separated from the rest of the paragraph, or the last line of a paragraph set at the top of a new column; this is undesirable both aesthetically and pragmatically as it interrupts the reader’s flow and thought process.
P
Pagination: Process of numbering pages
Pica: A typesetting unit of measure equal to approximately th of an inch, 12 points or 0.013837 inches.
Point: A typesetting unit of measure used to specify the height of a typeface equal to approximately nd of an inch or th of a pica.
Proof: Refers to a preliminary copy of the intended final composition and typesetting, ready for trial inspection or “proofing” which means to check for errors and indicate any changes before the actual final printing plate is produced.
Proofreader: The person who checks the typography for spelling errors, punctuation problems, and correctness of grammar prior to progressing to print.
Proofreader’s marks: A standard series of symbols used by those read and correct type, and indicate any necessary corrections. The series of marks are a system of standardized symbols employed by the typesetting and publishing industries.
Pull Quote: A phrase from the body text that is set larger, often in a different typeface, as a quotation that summarizes a main idea of an article.
Q
Quotation Marks: Also called quotes or inverted commas, (“ ”) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an open quotation mark and a closing quotation mark.
R
Readability: The quality of written language that makes it easy to read and understand.
Rough: A preliminary sketch or mock-up of a composition often drawn at full scale in color representing what the final may look like when the project is complete.
Rule: A typeset line that may be used alone or as an outline of a shape available in varying thicknesses specified in points.
Run-around: Text copy set to wrap around a silhouetted image or other design element, which may also be referred to as contour-set or wraparound.
Run-In: A head incorporated into the first line of body copy or introductory phrase of body text commonly set larger, bolder, in italic, small caps, or a different font intended to attract the reader’s attention.
Running Foot or footer: Refers to a title, design element, rule and/or folio repeated on every page within the bottom margin area.
Running head or Header: Refers to a title, design element, rule and/or folio repeated on every page within the top margin area.
S
San Serif: Also Gothic; a group of typefaces where the letters are without serifs (cross strokes at the end of the main strokes) and are relatively uniform in weight. There are several styles of gothic faces sometimes called block letter.
Script: Typefaces based on handwriting, linked characters usually incorporating a right-hand slant and flourishes on the uppercase letters.
Semicolon: A punctuation mark (;) used to connect independent clauses, and indicates a closer relation than does a period or full stop.
Serif: Short, delicate, decorative cross lines or tails at the end of the main strokes in many letters and symbols in some typefaces.
Set Solid: A typesetting term that refers to type with no additional leading between the lines; for example, 10-point type with no additional leading would be specified as “set solid”, 10/10 or solid leading.
Shoulder: A curved portion of the stroke of a letterform that connects to a straight stroke, as in the lowercase letters m, n, and h.
Side head: A heading set to the side of the page or column of text; a heading set partially into the outer margin of the text and partially into the column of text is called a cut-in side heading.
Slab Serif: Refers to a serif font, also sometimes referred to as “Egyptian” that has large, squared-off serifs usually of the same weight as the main stem stroke.
Small Caps: Smaller of two capital-letter sizes in a typeface. Small caps are generally slightly larger than the lowercase letters in that typeface.
Spine: The main curved stroke of the letter S
T
Splayed: Defines the stem of a character that is wider at the top and bottom than it is toward the center.
Spur: The nodule descending from the vertical stroke of an uppercase G connecting the straight stroke to the curved stroke.
Stem Stroke: The main stroke of a character.
Stroke: Any line required as part of the basic construction of a letterform, not including serifs or swashes.
Subhead: Line of copy that is secondary in importance to the headline of the advertisement, but that adds a new idea or expands the theme presented by the headline to further encourage reader interest.
Subscript: Small characters placed below the baseline of the regular font, commonly used to denote chemical formulas; also known as inferior characters.
Superscript: Small characters placed above the x-height of the regular font used to denote footnotes in body text, or exponents in mathematical formulas; also knows as superior characters
Swash: A fancy flourish that replaces the terminal or serif on scripts and alternate characters
Tail: A stroke or arc of a character starting from the mail stroke or structure of a letterform and extending downward, with one end free, as seen in the letters R, K, and Q.
Terminal: The free end of a stroke, available in different variations such as sheared, ball, straight, acute, horizontal, convex, concave, flared, hooked, tapered, and pointed.
Terminal Attributes: Describe the variety of terminals and finishing strokes found within letterforms, as well as where had how they have been applied.
Text: 1. wording in an advertisement, brochure, or other printed document. 2. class of type; including roman, script, gothic, and text.
U
Thumbnail: Small rough sketches prepared quickly with little detail, intended to document numerous compositional ideas generated in a relatively short period of time; a type of visual shorthand.
Tilde: A grapheme, that when used as a diacritic mark (~) is placed above an n in some orthographies to indicate a palatalized sound, as in Spanish cañon. The same mark placed above a vowel in phonetic transcription to indicate that the vowel is nasalized.
Tittle: The name of the dot above the lowercase i (also call a jot)
Tracking: The function, within a software application, that determines the character-to-character spacing proportionally; the tracking may be set to a negative number for a tighter fit called minusing or squeezing, or may be set to a positive number for letter spacing purposes.
Typeface: The specific design of an alphabet’s characters.
Type Family: All of the styles of any particular typeface including; extra light, light, book, regular, bold, heavy, extra bold, and ultra. Variations such as condensed, extended and expanded are also included.
Type size: The dimensions of a font measured in points from the top of the ascenders to the bottom on the descenders.
Typo: in shorthand, slang of the phrase “typographical error.”
Typography: Art of selecting and spacing typefaces.
V
Uppercase: Capital letters
Vertex: The outer downward juncture of two angled stems where the resulting point touches just below the baseline; different types of vertices include rounded, pointed, hollow, flat, and extended.
W
Waist Line: The invisible or imaginary horizontal rule that indicates the top of the body height of the lowercase letters, also called the x-height.
Widow: The line at the end of a typeset paragraph that is less than half the column width, usually only one or two words; these are undesirable in typeset copy.
Word Space: The standard white space between each word in typeset copy, usually 1/3 em for lowercase body text and one en for caps.
X
X-height: The height of the body of lowercase letters, excluding ascenders and descenders as measured from the baseline to the waistline.