Type Part 1

Type.

by A. A. Stewart.

PREFACE

This treatise is the first of a series of text-books, published under the general t.i.tle of _Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices_, which have been prepared under the auspices of the Committee on Education of the United Typothetae of America, for the use of printers' apprentices and students of typographic printing.

As will be noted by the table of contents, only the mechanical features of type and the usual methods of its manufacture have been considered here. No attempt has been made to review the history of type-faces or the development of type-making processes. These phases of the subject are considered in other publications of the series (see p. 36) and in supplementary reading recommended for students (p. 28).

It is not what they are but what they can be made to do under the control of trained intelligence and skilful hands that makes printer's types of importance to the world. No tools used in modern industry seem simpler than these little pieces of metal, yet they are the product of the most highly specialized skill and ingeniously perfected mechanisms. To the young printer their physical elements are matters of first concern. An understanding of these elements may be only a small part of his trade education, but it is important. The possibilities and the limitations of type can be appreciated only by thorough familiarity with the technical details and niceties provided by the modern typefounder.

A special feature of this series of technical publications is the list of Review Questions, which will be found at the end of each treatise (see pp. 29-31). These questions cover the essential points in each subject and will be of a.s.sistance to instructors, for examinations, etc. A list of the other t.i.tles of the series, as well as a statement of their plan and scope, will be found on pp. i-vii of this publication.

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 quant.i.ty. 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 a.s.sociates 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 ma.s.s. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 cla.s.ses: 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A A, the face B B, the serifs C C, the counter E, the pin-mark F F, the beard G, the shoulder H, the nick J J, the feet K, the groove]

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 a.s.sist in distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sortment 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 quant.i.ty.

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 ae [OE]

_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 ae [OE]

_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 ae [oe]

[fi] [fl] [ff] [ffi] [ffl]

_Figures_-- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 (or oldstyle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0)

_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 [Symbol: dagger] double dagger [Symbol: double dagger] section -- parallel paragraph -- index (hand, or fist) [Symbol: right hand]

_Braces_--Two-em [Graphic: two-em brace] three-em [Graphic: three-em brace] pieced braces [Graphic: pieced brace] made on em bodies, which may be extended more or less with dashes [Graphic: longer pieced brace]

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

The character [ct] 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ae [OE]_

_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 ae [oe]_

_Italic Figures_-- _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0_ (_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 (a e e [=i] [=o] u etc.), fractions 3/4 5/13 etc.), mathematical signs (+ = etc.), superior (^{ab 42}) and inferior (_{ab 12}) letters and figures, leaders (............), commercial signs (@ [Symbol: lb bar] [Symbol: per sign] [Symbol: account of] ), 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ties of some characters, as well as other material, must be provided.

Ordinary roman and other faces used in large quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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 LOWER-CASE POINTS A 15 a 30 period 31 B 6 b 12 comma 31 C 10 c 16 colon 6 D 8 d 18 semi-colon 6 E 18 e 40 hyphen 9 F 7 f 12 apostrophe 13 G 7 g 12 ! 9 H 8 h 20 ? 8 I 15 i 30 ( 6 J 5 j 8 K 5 k 8 FIGURES L 10 l 20 M 8 m 16 1 5 N 15 n 30 2 4 O 15 o 30 3 4 P 8 p 12 4 4 Q 3 q 6 5 4 R 15 r 30 6 4 S 15 s 30 7 4 T 15 t 30 8 4 U 8 u 16 9 5 V 5 v 8 0 6 W 6 w 12 $ 4 X 3 x 6 1 Y 6 y 12 Z 3 z 6 & 6 [fi] 3 [fl] 3 [ff] 3 [ffi] 2 [ffl] 2 +------------+------------+---------------+

A WEIGHT FONT