Does *anybody* here know what the hell the width of each character in a 
Courier 10pt typeface is?! (Apparently it isn't 10pt.)

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Invisible wrote:
> Does *anybody* here know what the hell the width of each character in a 
> Courier 10pt typeface is?! (Apparently it isn't 10pt.)

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Well, by a series of experiments, I have discovered that the neither the 
character width or character hight of Courier 10pt is actually 10pt. The 
distance from the baseline to the capline is more like 5.5pt or 
something, and the distance between characters appears to be exactly 6pt...

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Invisible schrieb:

> Well, by a series of experiments, I have discovered that the neither the 
> character width or character hight of Courier 10pt is actually 10pt. The 
> distance from the baseline to the capline is more like 5.5pt or 
> something, and the distance between characters appears to be exactly 6pt...

Yes, the "pt" in fonts is a rather arbitrary measurement. I guess in 
traditional typesetting it would refer to the height of the metal 
"block" from which the letters were cut, so even there it would be only 
indirectly related to the actual glyph dimensions.

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>> Well, by a series of experiments, I have discovered that the neither 
>> the character width or character hight of Courier 10pt is actually 
>> 10pt. The distance from the baseline to the capline is more like 5.5pt 
>> or something, and the distance between characters appears to be 
>> exactly 6pt...
> 
> Yes, the "pt" in fonts is a rather arbitrary measurement. I guess in 
> traditional typesetting it would refer to the height of the metal 
> "block" from which the letters were cut, so even there it would be only 
> indirectly related to the actual glyph dimensions.

Well, the glyph will be smaller than the metal block to allow some 
whitespace around the glyph. But you'd think 10pt would be either the 
width or the hieght of the block... Apparently it is neither.

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On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:47:15 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> Well, the glyph will be smaller than the metal block to allow some  
> whitespace around the glyph. But you'd think 10pt would be either the  
> width or the hieght of the block... Apparently it is neither.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)



-- 
FE

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>> Well, the glyph will be smaller than the metal block to allow some 
>> whitespace around the glyph. But you'd think 10pt would be either the 
>> width or the hieght of the block... Apparently it is neither.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)

Your point being...?

Last time I checked, PostScript measures everything in points.

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On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:41:41 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> Your point being...?

"In metal type, the point size (and hence the em) is measured as the  
height of the metal body from which the letter rises."

"In digital type, the relationship of the height of particular letters to  
the em is arbitrarily set by the typeface designer. However, as a very  
rough guideline, an 'average' font might have a cap height of 70% of the  
em, and an x-height of 48% of the em."


> Last time I checked, PostScript measures everything in points.

With the "point size" corresponding to the em. In a 10pt font, one em  
equals 10 points. The actual height of most letters will be smaller.



-- 
FE

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>> Your point being...?
> 
> "In metal type, the point size (and hence the em) is measured as the 
> height of the metal body from which the letter rises."

I knew that. ;-)

> "In digital type, the relationship of the height of particular letters 
> to the em is arbitrarily set by the typeface designer."

In other words, given a 10pt font, there is no way to determine how tall 
or wide any of the letters are. (E.g., they could be 10pt, 1pt, 
1000pt...) This is very helpful. :-/

>> Last time I checked, PostScript measures everything in points.
> 
> With the "point size" corresponding to the em. In a 10pt font, one em 
> equals 10 points. The actual height of most letters will be smaller.

Still doesn't help me figure out how wide the letters of Courier 10pt 
are. (Being a monospace font, all the letters should be the same width...)

As I say, it appears to be exactly 6pt. But I have no idea why...

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Does *anybody* here know what the hell the width of each character in a 
> Courier 10pt typeface is?! (Apparently it isn't 10pt.)

  The size of a font refers to its height, not its width.

  (And the "height" is that between two baselines in the font. The font
graphics themselves can go over those lines.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

>   The size of a font refers to its height, not its width.

I had a vague recollection this might be the case.

>   (And the "height" is that between two baselines in the font. The font
> graphics themselves can go over those lines.)

That at least makes some kind of sense...

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