Typography - Getting The Hang Of Typography

(lu) #1

font, sometimes two different point sizes will render at the same
height, causing a shift in letter spacing, width and x-height.


For example, 14pt Arial renders 10 pixels high with an x-height of 8 pixels.
Arial at 13pts also sits 10 pixels high but has an x-height of only 7 pixels – a
slight but very perceivable difference. When tightly tracked, this setting
may also require manual kerning, because some letters will sit pixel to pixel
against each other.


13pt and 14pt Arial render with the same cap height but different x-heights.


Sharp


The Sharp setting uses very tight grid-fitting and produces sharp, if not too
sharp, type. The plotting of pixels with this setting is very similar to how the
None setting plots them but allows for a certain degree of smoothing. In
fact, if pixels are set atop one another, you can actually see that a majority
of solid pixels carry over from None to Sharp.

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