MECHANICAL FEATURES OF TYPE

Printing owes its development first and chiefly to movable metal types. The so-called invention of printing was the discovery of a method of making serviceable type in quantity. The idea of a separate type for each letter of the alphabet was probably conceived long before Gutenberg’s time, but it remained for him and his associates to devise an apparatus for making them quickly and accurately enough to be of practical value. That apparatus was the type mold, which experience has since proved to be the most efficient means of securing exactness and uniformity in a number of small pieces of metal.

Type is made of an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony. Its length (technically called height-to-paper) is .918 of an inch. Each type is cast separately in a mold, and has the letter or printing character in bold relief on one end.

Exact uniformity of body is necessary in order that the types, when composed in lines and pages, may be locked together by pressure at the sides so as to make a compact mass. All types in a printing form must be of the same height, so that their faces may present a uniformly level surface from which an impression may be made that will show all the characters clearly. A short type will print faintly or will not print at all, while a long one will be unduly forced into the sheet.

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There are on an average about one hundred and fifty roman letters and other characters required in ordinary book printing. These letters are divided into a number of classes: full-body letters, ascending letters, descending letters, short letters; and in some cases, small capitals, which are larger than short letters but not so tall as capitals or ascenders. Only a few letters, like J and Q, cover nearly the entire surface on the end of the type; other letters, like B h l i, cover the upper portion chiefly and leave a blank space at the bottom; while the small letters, like a e o u v, occupy only the middle portion of the surface; still others, like g y p, cover the middle and lower portions of the surface. As all these irregular shapes must be made to appear in line with each other, the type-body on which they are made is larger than the letter. The blank parts around the face of a letter are called the counter, the shoulder, and the beard. The counter is the shallow place between the lines of the face. The shoulder is the low flat part of the type around the face. The beard is the sloping part between the face and the shoulder.

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An important feature of a type is the nick on the side of the body. In many cases there may be two, three, or even four nicks on a type. Usually all the types of a font have nicks that are identical in number and position, and when the types are composed in lines these nicks match each other and form continuous grooves on the lower part of the line of type.

The nicks serve as guides to the compositor when taking the type from the case to his composing stick, and they assist in distinguishing the types of one font or face from those of another on the same size of body.[1] Individual letters of different type faces sometimes bear such close resemblance that they are more readily distinguished by the nick or some other body-mark than by the face. A difference in alignment of nicks in a line will readily show the presence of a wrong-font letter. Typefounders sometimes make an extra nick on a few small-capitals (o s v w x z) in order to distinguish these types from the lower-case letters of the same font.

A Font of Type

A font of type is an assortment of one size and kind that is used together. It is usually all the type in the composing-room of a certain kind matching in body, nick, and face. A small font may be held in one case, but several cases may be required for a font of large quantity.

An ordinary font of roman type for book work will include these characters:

Roman Capitals—A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Œ

Small Capitals—a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ œ

Lower-case Letters[2]—a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ œ ﬁ ﬂ ﬀ ﬃ ﬄ

Figures—1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 (or oldstyle

)

Marks of Punctuation—Period . comma , colon : semi-colon ; hyphen - apostrophe ’ exclamation mark ! question mark ? parenthesis ( bracket [ The latter two are used in pairs () [], the second type being set in reversed position.

Quotation Marks are made by two inverted commas “ at the beginning and two apostrophes ” at the end of the quoted matter. In some fonts there is a double mark |"| |"| cast on single bodies, but these are not often used.

Dashes—En – em — two-em —— three-em ———

Reference Marks—Asterisk or star * dagger † double dagger ‡ section § parallel ‖ paragraph ¶ index (hand, or fist) ☞

Braces—Two-em

three-em

pieced braces

made on em bodies, which may be extended more or less with dashes

The dollar-mark $, short-and (or round-and) &, and sterling pound-mark £ are also included with all full fonts.

The character

is an old-style ligature (two joined letters cast on one type) made in some fonts of old-style faces. It is one of the many letter combinations formerly common, in imitation of the work of old manuscript writers.

Many styles of roman types have italic letters to match, but the italic fonts include only capitals, lower-case, figures, and punctuation marks:

Italic Capitals—A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Œ

Italic Lower-case—a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ œ

Italic Figures—1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 (

)

Italic Points, etc.[3]—. , : ; - ’ ! ? ) $ &

Small capitals are not made for italic fonts, except in rare cases. When they are needed in composition, capitals of a smaller size of type are justified into the text line.

Other extra characters, not included in ordinary fonts but which may be added when required, are accented letters (â é ë ī ō û etc.), fractions ¾ ⁵⁄₁₃ etc.), mathematical signs (+ × ÷ = etc.), superior (^{ab 42}) and inferior (_{ab 12}) letters and figures, leaders (…………), commercial signs (@ ℔ ⅌ ℀ ¢), and many other characters for special kinds of printing.

Fonts of advertising, jobbing, and display types usually consist of the capitals, lower-case letters, figures, and points, with occasionally a few extra characters. For many recent styles of heavy faces the founders furnish fractions, accented letters, and other special characters to match in boldness of face, but these are not included in ordinary letter-fonts.

The quantity of each character apportioned to a regular font is the estimated average required for ordinary composition in the English language. It is rare that more than a fraction of a small font can be used in any piece of composition. No general scheme can meet the needs of every kind of work; tables and statistical matter will need extra figures, directories and other lists will call for surplus capitals, dialogue matter will need more than the usual portion of commas and apostrophes for quote-marks; even plain descriptive composition will often call for extra “sorts.” For these and other peculiar kinds of composition extra quantities of some characters, as well as other material, must be provided.

Ordinary roman and other faces used in large quantities are measured by weight. The proportion of letters in a 100-pound font, showing the proportions of each character, is given on the next page. Miscellaneous faces used in small quantities are put up in fonts containing a certain number of each letter, the size of the font being designated by the number of capital A’s and lower-case a’s it contains.

Scheme for 15-A 30-a Job Font of 12-Point[4]

CAPITALS
A	15
B	6
C	10
D	8
E	18
F	7
G	7
H	8
I	15
J	5
K	5
L	10
M	8
N	15
O	15
P	8
Q	3
R	15
S	15
T	15
U	8
V	5
W	6
X	3
Y	6
Z	3
&	6

LOWER-CASE
a	30
b	12
c	16
d	18
e	40
f	12
g	12
h	20
i	30
j	8
k	8
l	20
m	16
n	30
o	30
p	12
q	6
r	30
s	30
t	30
u	16
v	8
w	12
x	6
y	12
z	6
ﬁ	3
ﬂ	3
ﬀ	3
ﬃ	2
ﬄ	2

POINTS
period	31
comma	31
colon	6
semi-colon	6
hyphen	9
apostrophe	13
!	9
?	8
(	6

FIGURES
1	5
2	4
3	4
4	4
5	4
6	4
7	4
8	4
9	5
0	6
$	4
£	5