| Thomas Detrie | detrie@detrie.asu.edu | Rev 15 Feb 99 |

Font Fundamentals

Copyright 1995-1999 Thomas Detrie. All rights reserved.

Digital Fonts,
information about the practical use of fonts in documents intended for commercial printing;

Font History,
a brief history that explains the evolutionary development of letterforms and how technology affected changes in printing; and

Font Design,
an approach to the design of text composition typefaces that melds the achievements of the past with current and practical applications today.



Terms used throughout this material are:

font: the complete set of characters at one size, in one style, of one typeface, within one family;

typeface: a specific style within the typeface family;

typeface family: all forms and variations comprising one design, the typeface name;

type style:a variation on the intrinsic design of the typeface family;

PostScript point:the digital type measurement unit, one seventy-second of an inch.

Example: 'Times Italic 10' is the ten-point font of the Italic typeface from the Times family.
( See Figure 2. )


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