Some Basic Facts about Fonts7-27AppendixSome Basic Facts about FontsThis section summarizes some of the basic facts you should know about fonts.What Is a Font?A font is a collection of letters and symbols used when printing a document. Ingeneral, a group of letters and symbols sharing a common design is referred to asa font. A font consists of the letters A to Z in both upper and lowercase, digits, andsymbols.The design that distinguishes one font from another is referred to as a "typeface."Each font has a typeface name, such as Courier, CG Times, Letter Gothic, etc.Attributes of FontsAll fonts share some common characteristics, which are called "attributes." Thetypeface is one such attribute. The letters and symbols that are actually printed aredetermined by the values of a collection of these attributes.Typeface The design of the letters (e.g., Courier, CG Times, Helvetica, or Gothic).Stroke Weight The thickness of the lines with which the letters are drawn (e.g., bold,medium, or light).Style Whether the letters are drawn straight or at an angle (e.g., upright oritalic).Point Size Height of the letters (e.g., 10 point or 5 point).Pitch (cpi) Number of characters that are printed in one inch (e.g., 10 cpi, 12 cpi, orScale).CharacterWidth (Fixed/PS)Indicates whether the character width is set to "Fixed" or "Proportional."Orientation Orientation of the characters on a page ("Portrait" or "Landscape").Symbol SetThe rule that defines the correspondence between the character codescoming from the host computer, and the letter forms that appear on thepage (e.g., Roman-8).
