Font spacing characteristics
Fonts can be classified according to their spacing characteristics
and by their format.
- Uniformly spaced fonts
- Uniformly spaced
fonts, or monospaced fonts, are similar to typewriter fonts,
for which each character increment 1 is the same width. Thus, the lowercase i and
the . occupy as much space as the uppercase M.
Examples of uniformly spaced fonts include Courier and Letter Gothic:
i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.
- Duospace fonts
- Duospace fonts are
similar to uniformly spaced fonts. Duospace fonts can be two character
widths instead of a single character width. Ideographic characters
are designed on full-width increments while other characters can be
designed for half-width increments. This concept allows the half-width
and full-width characters in the box size examples in Figure 3 to
be implemented in a single font. Note: As more language support is implemented in duospace fonts, more character widths can be used. However, the characters widths are always a multiple of the half-width character increment. This function allows a monospaced appearance of the data by using this font spacing.
- Typographic fonts
- Typographic fonts are
proportionally spaced fonts. The character increment is part of the
design and varies on a character-by-character basis. Thus, the lowercase i and
the . occupy narrow spaces. The uppercase M occupies
a wide space. Examples of typographic fonts include Helvetica and
Times New Roman: i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.i.M.
- Pitch
- Uniformly spaced fonts are often described or referred to in pitch, or the number of characters that are printed in one horizontal inch (Figure 1). Pitch is also referred to as characters per inch (cpi).
- Points
- All fonts are measured in points, the vertical size of the font. One inch is equal to approximately 72 points. Point size is a baseline-to-baseline measurement, which includes minimal white space. The baseline is the line upon which the characters rest. Thus, the actual height of the characters in an 18-point font is less than 18 points (Figure 2). The line spacing usually includes one or more points of white space between lines of type.
- Box size
- Double byte character set (DBCS) raster fonts were formerly measured in box size, the number of pels in the character box. Box size can be either a horizontal or a vertical measurement. Usually both dimensions are given, with the box width first. If only one dimension is given, it is the box height. In full-width fonts, the box width is usually equal to the box height. In half-width fonts, the box width is one-half the box height.
1 A character increment is the
distance that the current print position is increased for the particular
character printed.