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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] dev null> 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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Invisible wrote:
> 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...
And there is 72 points to the inch.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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> And there is 72 points to the inch.
Depending on who you ask. ;-)
(PostScript assigns 72 points to the inch, TeX assigns 72.72, and
apparently other systems assign yet other values.)
Fortunately, in this instance I'm only interested in PS.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> And there is 72 points to the inch.
>
> Depending on who you ask. ;-)
>
True ask me, I worked in printing just after hot metal went out of
fashion. LOL
> (PostScript assigns 72 points to the inch, TeX assigns 72.72, and
> apparently other systems assign yet other values.)
>
> Fortunately, in this instance I'm only interested in PS.
>
:)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 3-11-2009 20:58, Stephen wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> And there is 72 points to the inch.
>>
>> Depending on who you ask. ;-)
>>
>
> True ask me, I worked in printing just after hot metal went out of
> fashion. LOL
Ok: how many points in an inch?
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On 3-11-2009 11:49, 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.)
I did a simple test: I used Open Office writer. Selected Courier New and
type as many spaces as I could fit on a line. There were 66, the ruler
showed that that was in approximately 16.8 cm. So we have
66/(16.8/2.54) characters per inch. Or about 9.9786.
Great. Minor detail, the font size is 12.
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andrel wrote:
> On 3-11-2009 20:58, Stephen wrote:
>> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> And there is 72 points to the inch.
>>>
>>> Depending on who you ask. ;-)
>>>
>>
>> True ask me, I worked in printing just after hot metal went out of
>> fashion. LOL
>
>
> Ok: how many points in an inch?
72 LOL
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Invisible wrote:
>
> 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. :-/
Look in the font file. It can be converted to human readable with
probably several things. I use fontforge.
>
> As I say, it appears to be exactly 6pt. But I have no idea why...
Correct.
-Shay
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>> 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. :-/
>
> Look in the font file. It can be converted to human readable with
> probably several things. I use fontforge.
The PostScript Courier font is hard-wired into the printer. I have no
idea how to get at it.
>> As I say, it appears to be exactly 6pt. But I have no idea why...
>
> Correct.
Much experimentation and many trees later... ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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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.
>
> 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.
Note that the block had to accomodate not only capital letters, but also
underliners, as well as accent symbols above capital letters; so if the
capital letters are 5.5 pt in height, a block height of 10 pt appears
realistic to me.
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Invisible schrieb:
> 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. :-/
Exactly.
There's some meta-information in font files though.
> 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...
Typewriters typically used a spacing of 10 or (less commonly) 12
characters per inch, i.e. a character width of 7.2 pt (10 cpi) or 6.0 pt
(12 cpi).
With 10 pt and 12 pt being the most common nominal font sizes on
computers, it makes sense to design a pixed-pitch font to match the
common typewriter pitch of 7.2 pt (to be able to print on forms
originally designed for typewriters) at a nominal font size of 12 pt, as
this also allows to emulate the 6.0 pt pitch by simply changing the
nominal font size to 10 pt.
Hence the exact 6 pt pitch of the Courier font at a nominal font size of
10 pt.
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Warp schrieb:
> (And the "height" is that between two baselines in the font. The font
> graphics themselves can go over those lines.)
That's actually not true - at least not in practice. Instead, word
processing software will usually adjust the line spacing to some other
font properties.
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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
>> And there is 72 points to the inch.
>
> Depending on who you ask. ;-)
>
> (PostScript assigns 72 points to the inch, TeX assigns 72.72, and
> apparently other systems assign yet other values.)
>
> Fortunately, in this instance I'm only interested in PS.
The traditional US-american printers' "pica point" was defined for one
pica (12 points) to be 0.166 inch (giving ca. 72.29 points per inch).
TeX, being quite traditionalistic regarding typesetting, probably bases
its definition on this older standard, although I'm quite puzzled why it
uses the slightly lower value of 72.27 (not 72.72). Maybe it has to do
with the evolution of the inch since the day the "pica point" was
standardized. Also, there seems to have been alternative suggestions for
the definition of the pica point back in the time when it was
standardized in 1886, one if which would have resulted in exactly 72.27
points per inch.
However, /the/ "DTP point" gives exactly 72 points per inch, and any
software using a different definition is a rare exception.
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On 11/3/2009 7:17 PM, clipka wrote:
> The traditional US-american printers' "pica point" was defined for one
> pica (12 points) to be 0.166 inch (giving ca. 72.29 points per inch).
> TeX, being quite traditionalistic regarding typesetting, probably bases
> its definition on this older standard, although I'm quite puzzled why it
> uses the slightly lower value of 72.27 (not 72.72). Maybe it has to do
> with the evolution of the inch since the day the "pica point" was
> standardized. Also, there seems to have been alternative suggestions for
> the definition of the pica point back in the time when it was
> standardized in 1886, one if which would have resulted in exactly 72.27
> points per inch.
>
> However, /the/ "DTP point" gives exactly 72 points per inch, and any
> software using a different definition is a rare exception.
Pica pica!
.
|\
| \.,,,__________
/ __!!/
|(%) (%) \
() . () |
\ ,., /
/ \
\"/ \''\ |
\ <_/
\ <_,|
.,..,,/"/, /\\
\ | \____/ \\
"" __//
_____ ||''
/ / \\||
/ / \,|
|__| \/
Mike
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On 11/3/2009 5:49 AM, 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.)
So, have you found a single guide which answers all your questions? I'm
interested in learning about it too.
Mike
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SharkD wrote:
> Pica pica!
>
> .
> |\
> | \.,,,__________
> / __!!/
> |(%) (%) \
> () . () |
> \ ,., /
> / \
> \"/ \''\ |
> \ <_/
> \ <_,|
> .,..,,/"/, /\\
> \ | \____/ \\
> "" __//
> _____ ||''
> / / \\||
> / / \,|
> |__| \/
>
Oh dear God... >_<
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SharkD wrote:
> On 11/3/2009 5:49 AM, 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.)
>
> So, have you found a single guide which answers all your questions? I'm
> interested in learning about it too.
Nope. In the end, I had to measure the metrics emperically. Google was
useless.
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