Book Layout & Formatting Ideas: Font Terminology

I originally got curious about the differences between script, cursive, and fantasy fonts, and so “Font Terminology” evolved.

I figured y’all might be interested as well when it comes to choosing a font for your book or website and would want to understand the terms thrown at you.

I do plan on a couple of posts on the legalities of using fonts (and where to get your own) in your print and/or ebook as well as fonts for your website.

Font Categories

Category Font * Useful for: Cursive A.k.a. script, calligraphy, handwritten Bradley Hand Brush Script MT Comic Sans MS Uses characters that have connective strokes which give the font a handwritten appearance for a feeling of sophistication, elegance, and beauty. Fantasy Luminari Uses stylized fonts that still maintain the characteristics of non-cursive, traditional alphabets. Monospace A.k.a. fixed-pitch, fixed-width, non-proportional Andalé Mono Courier Lucida Monaco Gives text the appearance of a manual monospaced typewriter. Used to distinguish code from natural-language text in technical manuals and programming languages. Sans-serif A.k.a. gothic, sans, sans serif Arial Arial Black Helvetica Tahoma Trebuchet MS Impact Gill Sans Verdana Typically used in word processing programs. Serif Baskerville Georgia Palatino Times New Roman Typically used in printed books, newspapers, and magazines. * All the above fonts are at the same size.

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Exploring Later . . .

You may be interested in exploring “Tracking and Kerning“, tittle in “Tilt vs Title vs Tittle“, “ Roman, a Typeface“, and “Inserting Diacritics“.

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Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, a.k.a. . . .

. . . typesetting, is all about the how the inside of your fiction or non-fiction book — whether print or eBook — looks and the experience it provides your reader. Explore which pages are required or optional, the order the pages should follow, whether the page should be verso or recto, the definitions of technical terms, each page’s content, and in-depth formatting that includes text alignment, margins, bleeds, the choice of font and sizes, linespacing, how and where to place graphics of all sorts, how to style chapter headings, the need for a table of contents, the inclusion of epigraphs, running heads and feet, and so much more. Yes, book cover design will also be covered. Do check with the style guide for your publisher or in your field for how your layout may differ in page order and requirements, whether it’s page order or formatting. Make a checklist.

At the very least, knowing more about book layout design will help you understand a book layout designer you may hire.

My research has evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us any questions you’ve had on this subject that have been a bête noire for you from either end. If you found this post on “Font Terminology” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

NOTE: Example pages provide a sample of what should be found on that page and/or an explanation of the text you’ll need to write for that page. It will be noted when the layout differs between a print and an eBook.

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Font Terminology
Formatting
Definition: In the old days of metal type and printing presses, typefaces and fonts were different critters. Today with computers, typeface and font are used interchangeably. POST CONTENTS Typeface Font Sans-serif Serif Character Uppercase Lowercase Small Cap Glyph Ligature Font Size Terms Regarding Font Size Font Family Font Style Font Weight Font Width Typography Line Terms Font Formats
Typeface	Definition: The specific design of the letters, symbols, glyphs, numbers, and punctuation marks.
Return to top or post contents	Arial Artifika Baskerville Futura Georgia Helvetica Impact Luminari Times New Roman Verdana
Font	Definition: Refers to the particular size or style of a typeface. The two most basic styles are sans-serif and serif.
Return to top or post contents	Times New Roman 16pt bold Helvetica 12pt italic Futura 24pt condensed medium
Sans-serif	Definition: It literally means without line (commonly referred to as tail and has a darker appearance.
Return to top or post contents	It’s considered a more “modern” style. Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Laro Soft, and Futura are some of the most popular. Sans-serif classifications include geometric, grotesque (and neo-grotesque), humanist, and blends of these previous ones. A.k.a. gothic, sans, sans serif
	Sans-serif
Serif	Definition: A “tailed” style, serif letters have decorative lines extending from the body of the letter.
Return to top or post contents	Serif is preferred for more formal writing and is considered to be a better choice for bodies of text, as the “tails” help distinguish letterforms and make it easier for the reader to follow.
	Serif
Character	Definition: A single letter, number, or punctuation mark that is part of a font.
Return to top or post contents	A a 3 ! é (
Uppercase	Definition: Capitalized letters in a typeface used at the start of a sentence, for proper nouns, and for acronyms.
Return to top or post contents	A   George   FBI   Æ   Z   Paris
Lowercase	Definition: A smaller form of letter in a typeface used for most of the words in a sentence.
Return to top or post contents	h   dog   pony   stoplight   i   dishes   books
Small Cap	Definition: A letter(s) that is slightly larger than the lowercase letters in a typeface but still smaller than the uppercase letters.
Return to top or post contents	With small caps, all characters in a given word or phrase will appear at the same height and size.
	the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Glyph	Definition: A visual representation in a specific shape, design, or representation of a character, such as a letter, word, number, punctuation mark, or a mark that tells you how to pronounce a letter.
Return to top or post contents	˜ 1 — 112 ♭ – C ˚ word € & ‽
Ligature	Definition: A pair of characters joined as a single glyph.
Return to top or post contents	The purpose is to create a more legible design when two letters overlap and make them more attractive. NOTE: Not all typefaces include ligatures.
	æ œ ß ꝏ ff st
Font Size	Definition: How big or small the letters are.
Return to top or post contents	10 point 18 point 24 point 48 point
Terms Regarding Font Size	Definition: Typesetters use various terms regarding size — point was used above. Other measurement terms include: Pica – a unit of measure corresponding to 12 points or pixels Point (pt) – a unit of measure corresponding 1/12 of a pica or 1 pixel Point size – the size of the body of each character in a font Em (web sizing) – based on the default size in a browser, which is 16px, i.e., 1em = 16px Pixel (px) (web standard) – 1 pixel = 0.75 point
Font-family	Definition: A typeface usually has variations of its design in different weights and styles.
Return to top or post contents	Examples:
	Going beyond these four basics, font-families may also include: Fig. 1. Acumin Variable Concept has a font-family with a huge range of variations.
Font Style	Definition: A variation in appearance of a font.
Return to top or post contents	Style The Variation regular (roman) There is no variation other than a choice between sans-serif and serif. italic Has a definite slant, appearing more calligraphic. oblique Not a true italic, oblique has a slight slant to it. Most oblique fonts are sans serifs, but not all sans serifs have obliques. bold Has a heavier, darker appearance.
Font Weight	Definition: The degree of boldness of a typeface — light, medium, bold, etc.
Return to top or post contents	The most common weights are regular and bold but can be very light to very heavy values. On a website, fonts can be given different thicknesses by using a range of numbers.
	Fig. 2. Font Weights 100 to 900
Font Width	Definition: How much horizontal space is taken up by a typeface’s characters — a bold character/word takes up more width than a roman one.
Return to top or post contents	Width can be useful for “headlines, branding, and short passages of text that need to stand out. The wide letters differentiate the text and draw the viewer’s attention” (Andre). The different widths may be referred to as normal, condensed, extra condensed, narrow, wide, extended, ultraextended, and expanded.
	Fig. 3. Six examples of Acumin Variable Concept typeface in different widths.
Typography Line Terms	Definition: Five guidelines to which characters are aligned.
Return to top or post contents	Ascender height, a.k.a. topline, – where the top of letters like h or k might touch Cap height, a.k.a. cap line, – where the top for capital letters touch X-height, a.k.a. median, – where the top of lowercase letters touch Baseline – the line text sits on Descender height, a.k.a. beardline, – where the bottom of letters like p and y touch
	Fig. 4. Typography Line Terms is Max Naylor‘s work and is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Font Formats	Definition: A specific file type(s) designated to hold font data, with a font itself being the manifestation of a typeface.
	Font Format What It Does TrueType Fonts (TTF) A font standard developed in the late 1980s, by Apple and Microsoft. The most common font format for both the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating systems, “it’s a vector-based type format that stores data on the outlines of characters, allowing them to be scaled and manipulated without losing quality or resolution. This makes it ideal for displaying typefaces on computer screens and printing them in high resolution” (Snell). NOTE: TrueType does not support advanced OpenType features like ligatures, alternates, etc. OpenType Fonts (OTF) A format for scalable computer fonts and the standard font format in common use. It was built on TrueType, and is a registered trademark of Microsoft. OpenType fonts are used commonly today on the major computer platforms. “It includes advanced features such as ligatures, stylistic alternates, swashes, fractions, etc. Designers may need software (like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator) that supports OpenType features to take full advantage of these capabilities” (Snell). Web Open Font Format (WOFF) Developed in 2009 and recommended by W3C, it’s a font format for use in web pages. Essentially an OpenType or TrueType with compression and additional metadata, it uses less bandwidth and loads faster. Font vendors are more likely to license WOFF format fonts for you to use on your website. Web Open Font Format (WOFF 2.0) TrueType/OpenType font that provides better compression than WOFF 1.0. SVG Fonts/Shapes Allows SVG to be used as glyphs when displaying text. The SVG 1.1 specification define a font module that allows the creation of fonts within an SVG document. You can also apply CSS to SVG documents, and the @font-face rule can be applied to text in SVG documents. Embedded OpenType Fonts (EOT) A compact form of OpenType fonts designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web pages, but can only be used by Microsoft Internet Explorer.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Book Layout & Formatting Ideas by exploring its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Word Confusions, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Font Terminology

“The A-Z of Typographic Terms.” Monotype Imaging Inc. n.d. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://www.monotype.com/resources/z-typographic-terms>.

Andre, Marc. “33 Wide Fonts for Standout Text.” Vandelay Design. 7 Nov 2022. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://www.vandelaydesign.com/wide-fonts/>.

“A Beautifully Illustrated Glossary of Typographic Terms You Should Know.” Canva. DATE. Accessed 29 Oct 2023. <https://www.canva.com/learn/typography-terms/>.

Fessenden, Therese. “Typography Terms Cheat Sheet.” NN/g Nielsen Norman Group. 26 May 2019. Accessed 29 Oct 2023. <https://www.nngroup.com/articles/typography-terms-ux/>.

Master Class. “Understanding Font Families: 5 Types of Font Families.” Master Class.com. 7 June 2021. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/font-family-guide>.

MDN Contributors. “Font-weight.” GitLab. 7 July 2023. Accessed 7 Nov 2023. <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@font-face/font-weight>.

Romano, Jenna. “20 Best Fonts for Your Website (And Tips on How to Choose).” Wix.com. 5 Oct 2023. Accessed 30 Oct 2023. <https://www.wix.com/blog/how-to-choose-best-fonts-website>.

“Sans-serif.” Wikipedia. 23 Oct 2023. Accessed 7 Nov 2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif>.

Schenker, Marc. “20 Essential Typography Terms for Non-Designers.” Creative Market.com. 6 May 2021. Accessed 29 Oct 2023. <https://creativemarket.com/blog/typography-terms>.

Snell, Steven. “50+ Typography Terms: Glossary of Typographic Terms.” Vandelay Design. 17 Mar 2023. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://www.vandelaydesign.com/typography-terms/>.

“Typographic Terms.” Adobe. n.d. Accessed 29 Oct 2023. <https://www.adobe.com/studio/print/pdf/typographic_terms.pdf>.

“Understanding Typography.” Material Design. n.d. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://m2.material.io/design/typography/understanding-typography.html>.

“The Web Open Font Format (WOFF).” MDN Web Docs. Mozilla. n.d. Accessed 8 Nov 2023. <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/WOFF>.

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Pinterest Photo Credits:

My own work.