Type Font. A quantity of the same size and face of type with an assortment of the various letters and characters which are used together is called a font. Sometimes fonts are designated by the number of certain letters they contain. A font may be mentioned as having so many capital A’s and so many small a’s.
Type may be bought in weight or job fonts. If bought by weight, it contains capitals, small capitals, small or lower case letters, including ligatures (ff, fi, etc.), figures, marks of punctuation, spaces and quads. Twenty per cent of a weight font is made up of spaces and quads unless otherwise specified. Job fonts are small assortments of type, where only small quantities or unusual faces are needed. Such fonts do not include small capitals, spaces or quads.
Fonts or parts of fonts come from the foundry wrapped in small packages. The capitals, the small letters, and the quads and spaces come, of course, in separate packages. The letters are arranged for the most part in alphabetical order; but there is an occasional insertion of a mark of punctuation or a thin bodied letter out of regular order to fill out a line.
In taking the type from these packages, the entire face side of the mass of type is wet with soapy water. Then, beginning with the first of the alphabet, a few letters are taken at a time and put into the proper boxes of the case. This is called laying the case.
Fig. 3. NEWS CASES.
Fig. 4. JOB CASE.
Type Cases. Type cases, Figs. 3 and 4, in which type is kept are of two general kinds, news and job. News cases are in pairs, the upper and the lower case, arranged to occupy a position one above the other on top of the stand or cabinet, Fig. 5. The upper case contains the capitals, small capitals, and an assortment of signs and symbols. The lower case contains the small letters, numerals, marks of punctuation, quads and spaces. The California job case is about the size of the lower news case and fits like a drawer into a stand or cabinet. It is arranged to contain both the capitals and lower case type, but is without boxes for the small capitals. By reference to Fig. 4, it will be seen that the left side of the job case is exactly the same as the entire lower news case, except that the compartments are smaller.
