Fig. 65. the parts of a type
It very often happens in italics and script type that a part of a letter will stand out beyond the body and this little extension is called the kern. The nick in the type is to help the type-setter, or compositor as he is called, to set the type the right way in the stick, that is you always set the type with the nicks down and toward you.
The pin-mark is made by a sharp instrument which removes it from the mold. Finally a c e m n o r s u v w x z are called short letters; j is a long letter in that it takes up the full breadth of the face; b d f h i l t are upstroke, or ascending letters, while g p q are downstroke or descending letters.
The Sizes of Type.
—Type is made in standard sizes and not so very long ago each size was known by a name. Then a change was made and the point system,[67] as it is called, came into general use. The sizes under the old and the new systems are given in the following table and it will enable you to know type sizes both by name and by point.
[67] This is the standard system of sizes for type bodies. It is so called because it is measured in decimal points or fractions of an inch; that is, 1 point is .0138 inch, so that nonpareil, as it used to be called, is now 6 point and bourgeois is 9 point, etc.
TABLE OF TYPE SIZES
| OLD NAMES OF SIZES | NEW POINT SIZES | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl | 5 | point | |
| Agate | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | “ |
| Nonpareil | 6 | “ | |
| Minion | 7 | “ | |
| Brevier | 8 | “ | |
| Bourgeois | 9 | “ | |
| Long Primer | 10 | “ | |
| Small Pica | 11 | “ | |
| Pica | 12 | “ | |
| English | 14 | “ | |
| Great Primer | 18 | “ | |