[Gllug] font annoyance of the day

[Chris Bell]

On Thu 17 May, Nix wrote:
> 

> 
> Basically there's about a dozen different units of measure all called a
> `point', and different fonts were designed when different variants were
> current... feel the joy.
> 
> (And let's not even *talk* about the raving insanity which is TeX font
> installation.)
> 

   Point sizes date from the era of mechanical type, and relate to the size
of the type base, not the type face. An ornate type face with plenty of long
extenders, such as New Palace Script, must occupy a larger area. Type had to
be set so that a complete page could be locked in place, then picked up and
carried around by a frame around the edges, so it was standardised so that
the face sat at a standard distance from the back, (just under an inch), and
could be hammered level using a block of wood, and rows of type had to be
spaced so that they did not fall out despite different font styles being
used in the same row. The type base was measured in Points, (described as
1/72 inch in Britain but probably something similar in metric).
   The relationship between the "height" and "width" of the type added other
complications, with a square base being an "em" (originally the area
occupied by a capital "M") and different letters occupying combinations of
simple fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc) of an em. Some italic styles including
New Palace Script even had an angled top so that they could be set close
together, and some combinations of characters such as lower case ff, fi, and
fl were produced as discrete blocks. Similar combinations of spaces were
used so that row lengths could be "justified" to match each other and not
work loose.
   I have seen catalogues showing over 2000 commercial mechanical font
styles in a range of sizes, but the rights to many original designs were
purchased by companies such as Adobe as the era of moulded type was
overtaken by electronically configured Lithographic printing. Sometimes it
was a copyright name, and there are often close-to-identical styles under
different names. There are over 8000 style names listed on my Acorn RiscPC,
the one I am using now, but I do not have that many lead fonts for the Adana
printing machines I used when I was younger.

-- 
Chris Bell

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