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Old 09-02-2009, 02:06 PM   #1
Michael Rowley
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Default 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).

   
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Old 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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Old 09-03-2009, 06:34 AM   #3
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KT:
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Who is Brogan? Or which Brogan — or what writing — are you referring to?
I gave his name as 'Brogan', which is the customary English form of his (possibly) registered Irish name. He wrote a number of articles relating to typography.

His thesis (for his full membership of the Institute of Printing) is given here:

http://www.iol.ie/~sob/tm/index.xhtml

   
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Old 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.

   
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Old 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.
  • Changing to millimeters instead of points: First you need to persuade manufacturers and users in the U.S. to go along with it.
    .
  • Basing type size on cap height: He is wrong when he says “Capital height is normally the same as ascender height, though in some typeface designs it is a little less.” Reverse the thought, and you would be closer to the truth, but in fact there is no specified size relationship.
    .
  • Making cap height a fixed fraction of body size: Nuts. Not only would that be an esthetic disaster, no one is going to alter the gazillions of existing typefaces for that or any other “standard.”
    .
  • That the Mac first used the 1/72-inch point: Point of accuracy — that was the standard point for the IBM Composer typesetter in the 1960s (but it may have originated elsewhere, perhaps for the Varityper, which existed decades earlier).
    .
  • That x-height should be the basis of type size: If there were to be a change, x-height would be the right thing to base it on. But the notion that equipment (computers, software, CSS) should automatically adjust font-size to make the x-height the same regardless of type design is just plain wrong.
    .
  • Use cap height when caps are used alone: Use titling caps in that case.
    .
  • Specifying fonts on the web in millimeters: Bad idea for accessibility. Users should be able to resize type (or page) without hindrance. Use em or %.
All this regularization is proposed in the name of clarity or ease of use. But 98% of font users don’t care how things are set or measured or referred to (but are happy to see “real” and usually readable type emerge from their printers). The other 2% know how to set type, and most manage the ambiguity just fine.

   
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Old 09-04-2009, 03:41 PM   #6
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KT:
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He proposes a lot of complex changes — to typefaces or applications or methods of spec’ing type
O Brogáin does not, in fact, propose changes to electronic types, for he didn't know them in 1983. For that reason I didn't cite his paper; you are the one that wanted to know all about him. I proposed that we make use of existing (and easily obtainable) font metrics to select fonts by their relative x-heights. That has nothing at all to do with absolute dimensions; users are free to adopt either the SI system (which is hardly unknown in the USA) or stick to picas and points.

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.

   
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Old 09-12-2009, 03:02 PM   #7
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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)
I have done this for a number of fonts and tabulatd the results—see the attachment.
Attached Files
File Type: pdf size_table.pdf (419.4 KB, 16 views)

   
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