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09-02-2009, 02:06 PM | #1 |
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Using font metrics
I have been thinking about the lack of use we make of font metrics, particularly in connexion with Brogan's suggestion in 1983 that we should use the x-height of a font to compare the 'size' of fonts. Brogan's point was that conventional body sizes of fonts did not give much indication of the height of most of the l.c. letters.
But how do we find to relation between the x-height of a font and its body size? In Brogan's time, a large proportion of printers were using photocomposition, and the 'body size' of a type was purely imaginary, but in electronic typesetting the equivalent of the body size is as important as it was in the age of metal types; so the answer is that the x-height is a fixed proportion of the body size, and this proportion is found in every font's metrics. For example, the relative body size of Arial Roman is 2048/1062 times its x-height, which is better expressed as 1.9284 its x-height. If this is known, it is easy to find the body size for every given x-height—regardless of whether the x-height is expressed in points (USA only) or in milimetres (for everyone else). __________________ Michael |
09-02-2009, 05:16 PM | #2 |
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Who is Brogan? Or which Brogan — or what writing — are you referring to?
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09-03-2009, 06:34 AM | #3 | |
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KT:
Quote:
His thesis (for his full membership of the Institute of Printing) is given here: http://www.iol.ie/~sob/tm/index.xhtml __________________ Michael |
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09-04-2009, 07:18 AM | #4 |
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Here is another supporter of metric units:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/metric-typo/ But font metrics are quite independent of any system of units, since they are based on linear relations, not actual units. In any case, both the 'old' points and the newer (and more realistic) points are based on SI. Whether you prefer picas & points or millimetres is immaterial: stick to points if your paper is dimensioned in inches, use millimetres if your paper is dimensioned in millimetres. __________________ Michael |
09-04-2009, 02:01 PM | #5 |
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Okay, I read the Brogan paper.
He proposes a lot of complex changes — to typefaces or applications or methods of spec’ing type — for a problem that really does not exist within western typography. (It doesn’t make sense to try to unify practices for latin and asian typesetting. It is hard to imagine any solution that did not do violence to either or both systems.) Some reactions to the text, at random. I see that he raises many of these notions only to shoot them down, but just stating them positively suggests that someone takes them seriously.
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09-04-2009, 03:41 PM | #6 | |
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KT:
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The first four of your objections I agree with; but that they have much in common with anything O Brogáin was proposing is rather doubtful. The fifth suggestion is O Brogáin's main one, and you are agreeing to it, though reluctantly. The suggestion that x-heights, which all font designers specify, should be the basis of a typographer's specifications is no more radical than proposing that gasoline consumption should be based on how much you need for a specified distance rather than how far you can travel with a specified volume of gasoline. It would not involve changes in computers or CSS, but it would involve changes in software. All users need to know about measurements is that x + 1 > x, and if x is an x-height, that is more likely to hold if x is an x-height than if x is a body size. __________________ Michael |
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09-12-2009, 03:02 PM | #7 | |
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