In addition to the small sizes shown in the accompanying illustration, there are some intermediate sizes like 5½-point and 4½-point, and type as small as 3-point has been made. These are rare, however, as type smaller than 5½-point is not practicable for extended use. These small sizes are employed for special purposes, like miniature editions of books (parts of the Bible, prayer books, etc.) cut-in notes, piece-fractions, small borders, special characters, and occasional words or lines that are required to be put in the smallest possible space. The size of type known as agate (fourteen lines to an inch) is considered the common standard of measurement for newspaper and magazine advertising space.
Many plain types for books, periodicals, etc., are made only in small sizes. Certain faces are made in a few sizes only, while others are made in more or less complete series from 6-point to 48-point. The irregular sizes of 5½-point, 7-point, 9-point, and 11-point are mostly roman faces, with companion italics, and a few bolder styles for headings and other display in combination with romans of the same body. Many new faces are now made by founders in graded series from 6-point to 72-point, and in some cases even larger. Type faces adapted to many kinds of work are made in nearly all the regular sizes, while those faces designed for small and dainty work, like personal and society cards and stationery, are made only in the smaller sizes of the list.
Types are now often cast with faces larger or smaller than is commonly made on the body, such as a 12-point face on 10-point body, giving the effect of compactness; or an 8-point face made on a 10-point body, which gives a lighter appearance as if opened with 2-point leads. These are known as bastard types. Because of this irregularity in the faces of types it is difficult to know the exact body-size of a type by merely examining a printed sheet.
Borders, ornaments, florets, and decorative characters cast on type-bodies are now made mostly in sizes based on the 6-point as the unit (6, 12, 18, 24-point, and larger multiples), but 8-point, 10-point, and 14-point sizes are sometimes used.
Before the adoption of the point system, type sizes were named in a haphazard way. Arbitrary names were given to certain sizes and in many cases types of the same name made by different founders varied so much in size that they could not be used together without great inconvenience to the printer. Some of these old names still survive and are applied to the point-system bodies which approximate the old sizes.
| POINT SIZE | OLD NAME | |
|---|---|---|
| 3-point | … | excelsior |
| 4-point | … | brilliant |
| 4½-point | … | diamond |
| 5-point | … | pearl |
| 5½-point | … | agate |
| 6-point | … | nonpareil |
| 7-point | … | minion |
| 8-point | … | brevier |
| 9-point | … | bourgeois |
| 10-point | … | long primer |
| 11-point | … | small pica |
| 12-point | … | pica |
| 14-point | … | english |
| 16-point | … | columbian |
| 18-point | … | ⎰ great primer ⎱ three-line nonpareil |
| 20-point | … | paragon |
| 22-point | … | two-line small pica |
| 24-point | … | two-line pica |
| 28-point | … | two-line english |
| 32-point | … | two-line columbian |
| 36-point | … | two-line great primer |
| 40-point | … | two-line paragon |
| 44-point | … | meridian |
| 48-point | … | canon, four-line pica |
While these old names and their sizes are now nearly obsolete, young printers should learn the names and associate them with their corresponding sizes of the point system. In the foregoing list there are several intermediate sizes (16, 20, 22, 28, 32, 40, 44-point) rarely used for type of recent design. Fonts of these odd sizes may be sometimes found, and there has been a size of 15-point made, but little used. These odd sizes are, however, mostly old faces, scripts, and black-letter, originally cast on old bodies and later, after the introduction of the point system, made on new point-bodies which are nearest to their original sizes.
The point system has been applied to the width of types, as well as to the body-size; that is, the set of each type is fixed at a given number of points or fraction thereof. This method simplifies in a degree the process of accurate justification, as each line, though containing various letters and spaces, is composed of the same number of units. An advantage over the old method of unrelated widths is in the saving of time in composition, by reducing the number of different widths in the characters of the alphabet. By the old method each type had its own special width; in a complete font there might be a hundred or more different widths. By the modern point system those characters which are nearly alike in width are made on the same set, or, if different, the variation is governed by the standard unit.