Part 1 — GLOSSARY OF TERMS RELATING TO TYPE

The numbers in parentheses refer to preceding pages in the text, where further information about the different subjects may be found.

Agate—A small size of type, about 5½-point. (14)

Ascending Letters—The tall letters of the lower-case alphabet. (7)

Antimony—One of the ingredients of type-metal; a silver-white, hard crystalline metallic substance, used in chemistry and medicine, as well as in industrial arts. (26)

Bastard Types—Those with faces larger or smaller than is commonly made on a type-body. (15)

Beard—The beveled space below the face of a type. (15)

Body—The piece of metal upon which the face is cast. (7, 8, 13)

Body Size—The size of a type considered from top to bottom of the letter. (13)

Body Type—The kinds of type, mostly roman faces, used for plain composition in paragraphs or pages of one face; text letter.

Borders—Characters cast in type, which may be adjustable in many ways, as for marginal lines, panels, and other decorative uses. (15)

Bourgeois—An old size of type, about 9-point.

Brass Type—For stamping book covers, etc. Ordinary type-metal cannot endure the heat which must be applied for stamping gold leaf, or printing on hard, rough surfaces. Brass types are more expensive as well as more durable.

Brevier—An old size of type nearly equal to 8-point. (15)

Canon—An old size of type approximately 48-point. (15)

Cap.—Abbreviation for capital letter; s.c. or sm.cap., small capital.

Copper-faced Type—New type coated by electric action, depositing a thin film of copper, to make it more durable.

Copper Thin Spaces—Extra thin spaces for justifying lines. (19)

Corner Quads—Blanks cast in this shape ▛ matching 6-point and 12-point quads; placed outside the corners of pages with mitered brass rules to keep the joints in place.

Counter—The blank space within the lines of a letter or other character. (8)

Descending Letters—Those which have part of the face below the regular alignment, g, p, y. (8)

Diamond—A small size of type, equal to about 4½-point. (15)

Display Type—A general term meaning the kinds of type made for advertising, title pages, and other composition in which different sizes and faces are used; in distinction from body type.

Em—The square of a type body. En, half the width of the square. (19)

Extended, Expanded—An extra wide face of type.

Face—That part of a type or printing surface which leaves its impression upon the sheet. (8)

Feet—The bottom of the type body. (8)

Font—A complete assortment of type of one size and face. (9)

Furniture—A general term applied to pieces of soft metal, steel, or wood, used to fill the large blank spaces in a printing form; made in different sizes based upon a 12-point (pica) unit.

Great Primer—An old size of type nearly equal to 18-point. (15)

Hair Spaces—Very thin spaces. (19)

Height-to-paper—The length of a type from top to bottom, including feet and face. This is not measured by points, but by thousandths of an inch. See Type-high. (7, 13)

High Spaces and Quads—Used in type composition when the page is to be molded for electrotyping. (20)

High-to-line—When the face of a type is above the regular alignment of the other letters in the line; when below the alignment it is low-to-line. (17)

Hollow Quads—Large blanks are sometimes cast with hollow parts to make them lighter and to economize metal. See Quotations.

Italic—The style of letters that slope forward, in distinction from upright, or roman, letters. (10)

Jet—The waste metal at the bottom of a type when it is first cast, being the metal which cools in the aperture of the mold. (22)

Job Font—A small assortment of type. (11)

Job Type—The kinds used for miscellaneous work, usually in small fonts, in distinction from book type, body letter, etc.

Kerned Types—Those which have a small part of the face projecting over the body. (18)

Laying Type—Putting a font of type into cases.

Leaders—Dots or short dashes placed at intervals in open lines to guide the eye, as in indexes, price-lists, etc. They are cast like quads for sizes of type most used. Leaders are also made of brass.

Letter—Sometimes this word is used to mean type. Letter-press printing, that done with type. Letter foundry, a type foundry.

Lining Type—The exact alignment at top or bottom of the face on a type-body. (16-18)

Linotype—A machine for casting type in solid lines. (23)

Long Primer—An old size of type nearly equal to 10-point. (15)

Low-to-paper—Said of a type when it does not come up to the height of its mates; opposite of high-to-paper. (7)

Low Spaces and Quads—Those used for ordinary composition, about seven-eighths of the length of the type. (20)

Lower-case—The small letters of the alphabet. (9)

Matrix—The shallow mold in which the face of a type is cast. (21)

Minion—An old size of type, about 7-point. (15)

Monotype—A machine for casting and composing type. (25)

Mortised Type—When some part of the body is cut away, either in the interior or on the sides, to allow the insertion of another letter, or to fit closer to an adjoining type. (18)

Music Type—An assortment of characters cast in type for printing music scores.

Nick—The notch on the side of a type. (8) In fonts made for use on the Unitype composing machine each character has nicks in different position and combination from every other character, to fit its special channel, in order to control the various characters in the operation of the machine. Thus the nicks in a line of Unitype matter show great irregularity.

Nonpareil—Old name for size of type equal to 6-point; half pica (15)

Off Its Feet—Type must stand squarely upright in order to give a good impression; when it leans one way or the other it is off its feet.

Paragon—An old size of type, about 20-point (15)

Patent Space—A type space thicker than three-to-em and less than the en-quad. (19)

Pearl—An old size of type, about 5-point. (15)

Pi—Types of different kinds mixed up in confusion.

Pica—Old name, but still commonly used, for a size of type equal to 12-point. (15) A common unit of measurement in typography.

Piece Fractions—Fractions made up of two or more types; the numerator and denominator cast separately, usually on bodies half the size of the whole numbers or the type with which they are used. Sometimes called split fractions.

Pin-mark—The little mark sometimes seen on the side of foundry-made type. (8)

Point System—The standard system of type bodies, based on the point as a unit; in America the point is .0138 of an inch. Calculations are simplified ordinarily by assuming the point as ¹⁄₇₂ of an inch. (13)

Poster Type—Large sizes for billboard printing, mostly made of wood. (27)

Punch—In typefounding, an original die of a letter or character cut on the end of a steel bar, used to make a matrix. (21)

Quads—Metal blanks used for large spaces in composing type. (19)

Quotations—Large hollow quads; similar to metal furniture.

Rubber Type—Cast with a vulcanized-rubber face mounted on short metal bodies; not used in ordinary typographic printing, but classed with rubber hand stamps.

Script—A general name for that class of type designed to imitate handwriting. (18)

Sectional Type—A style of type now in disuse, in which each letter was made in two parts, the upper half being separate from the lower. Any letter or character cast in two or more parts.

Serif—The short cross-line or tick at the end of the main strokes in roman letters. (8)

Set—The width of a type. (13)

Shoulder—The blank space on the top of a type not covered by the letter; specifically, the space above and below the letter, the space on the side being designated by typefounders as side-bearings. (8)

Small Caps—A secondary set of capitals made for fonts intended for book work. They are slightly larger than the small (lower-case) letters, but smaller than the regular capitals. See the side-headings in this glossary. (9, 10, 12)

Small Pica—An old size of type nearly equal to 11-point. (15)

Spaces—Thin metal blanks used to separate words in a line. (19)

Sort—Any particular letter or character of a font, in distinction from the complete assortment. “Out of sorts,” when some needed letters of a font are missing.

Sort Order—A request for some particular character of a font.

Two-line Letter—A large letter covering two lines of the adjoining text, used for initials at the beginning of paragraphs. Two-line figures, used for displaying price-figures in advertisements, etc.

Type-high—Of the standard height of type; said of an electrotype or engraving that is the right height to accompany type. (7)

Type Metal—A composition of lead, tin, and antimony. (26)

Typography—The process of printing with forms composed of movable types and small relief blocks.

Weight Font—A complete assortment of type measured by its weight instead of by the number of each letter. (12)

Weight of Type—Four square inches of type, composed solid, weigh approximately one pound. Thus, to find the weight of any given amount of type composition, find the number of square inches and divide by four.

One pound of type (about 4 square inches) contains the following number of ems (solid) of the different sizes:

18-point 64 ems

12-point 144 ems

11-point 170 ems

10-point 207 ems

9-point 256 ems

8-point 324 ems

7-point 423 ems

6-point 576 ems