不親切な用語解説--「font」その7
id:satoschi:20060516の続き。
- Traditionally, a complete set of characters for one typeface at one particular type size. Now used more loosely as a synonym for "typeface".
- One weight, width, and style of a typeface. Before scalable type, there was little distinction between the terms font, face, and family. Font and face still tend to be used interchangeably, although the term face is usually more correct.
- In Windows, a complete set of characters for one style of a specific typeface, including all the letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. For example, Courier New is a font.
- We now have to accept font (as the Americans with an uncharacteristic economy took to calling it) as an alternative to fount, even though a font is really what contains the holy water that is used in baptisms in a Christian church. The word is now too widely used to resist. 'A fount of knowledge' is nevertheless a far more appropriate association.
A font is strictly speaking the contents of the two cases - upper and lower - in metal type. It could as easily be a particular size of type in photosetting systems that used different originals for each size. This perfectly proper transition became corrupted when one original was used to generate several different sizes. After that a font has sometimes come to mean all sizes of the same characters that could be found in the two typecases of yesteryear.
Font does not mean both roman and Italic, roman being the characters with upright stems, and italic being the specially drawn and more calligraphic characters that usually accompany a roman font for emphasis. Computer programs sometimes fudged an italic by sloping the roman. These are called sloping or sloped romans, even when they were deliberately designed by somebody who should have known better.
- A set of characters of the same typeface (such as Garamond), style (such as italic), and weight (such as bold). A font consists of all the characters available in a particular style and weight for a particular design; a typeface consists of the design itself. Fonts are used by computers for on-screen displays and by printers for hard-copy output. In both cases, the fonts are stored either as bit maps (patterns of dots) or as outlines (defined by a set of mathematical formulas). Even if the system cannot simulate different typefaces on the screen, application programs may be able to send information about typeface and style to a printer, which can then reproduce the font if a font description is available. See also bit map, font generator.
- A font of type is an assortment of all characters of one size and style. Additional characters are called sorts. When manual typesetters had a font that was short of characters, it was said to be “out of sorts,” the origin of the slang expression.
- A particular collection of characters of a typeface with unique parameters in the ‘Variation vector’ , a particular instance of values for orientation, size, posture, weight, etc., values. The word font or fount is derived from the word foundry, where, originally, type was cast. It has come to mean the vehicle which holds the typeface character collection. A font can be metal, photographic film, or electronic media (cartridge, tape, disk). You’ll notice that the relationship between the words “font” and “face” is already obfuscated.
- In the world of metal type, this means a given alphabet, with all its accessory characters, in a given size. In relation to phototype, it usually means the assortment of standard patterns forming the character set, without regard to size, or the actual filmstrip or wheel on which these patterns are stored. In the world of digital type, the font is the character set itself or the digital information encoding it. (The older British spelling, fount, has not only the same meaning but also the same pronunciation.) When type was set by hand, it was kept in wooden trays called cases. The cases, which are popular among antique collectors, are about an inch deep and divided into compartments, or boxes, of various sizes. A complete font required two such trays, usually placed one above the other on a sloping frame. The upper case held the capitals, the lower case the small letters. This position of the trays led printers to refer to capital letters as uppercase and small letters as lowercase. Today type is set not from wooden trays but from film images or by means of a computer-controlled beam of electrons. [Middle French fonte active of founding, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin fundita, feminine of funditus, past participle of Latin fundere to found, pour ― more at FOUND] ― ― -First appeared circa 1688 [Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin font-, fons, from Latin, fountain]
- [font―US] an unfortunate misspelling of fount which came to be pronounced that way.
- [fount 1] set of types (or mats) complete with all normal characters (one face and size)
- [fount 2] set of characters of one typeface (often serving all sizes)
Melbourne Museum of Printing - Glossary of Printing and Typography
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