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| − | == What defines the size in a font? ==
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| − | ::::: <i>This page is based on Taco's explanation in the list [2018-12-19].</i>
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| − | ==== ''The font designer decides on the ‘natural’ size of the font.'' ====
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| − | There are two parts to this:
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| − | * '''What the ‘natural’ size indicates.'''
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| − | First, what the ‘natural’ size indicates is the designer’s
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| − | _intended use size_ for the font, such that when you plan
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| − | to use the font “Times-Roman” without any special rescaling,
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| − | it should in fact be equivalent to “Times-Roman at ’natural size’”.
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| − | For most fonts, this ‘natural size’ is 10 pt, but special display
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| − | or footnote fonts may have a different intended use size, and the
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| − | font designer may have made special glyph adjustments for that purpose.
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| − | For example, the computer modern family has special fonts
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| − | with a ‘natural’ size anywhere between 5 pt and 17 pt.
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| − | The glyphs in the specific fonts with a smaller ‘natural’ size (like 8 pt)
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| − | are in fact a little bit bolder and wider than the same glyphs in
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| − | the font designed to be used at 10 pt. This makes sense when you
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| − | consider that the 8 pt font is likely be used along with the 10pt
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| − | font for e.g. footnotes. The 10 pt font used at 8 pt size would look
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| − | thinner and weaker than the actual font designed for 8 pt.
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| − | * '''What the ‘design’ size indicates.'''
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| − | Second, a design size in points like ‘10 pt’ is somewhat misleading,
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| − | because what it actually is, is just a different way of saying “at
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| − | the expected size for traditional main text”. The “10 pt" is notf
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| − | necessarily a measure of _anything_ in the font. In fact, font designers
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| − | sometimes do not use a “XX pt” design size at all. The Minion font family
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| − | has fonts with names like "Minion Pro Caption" and "Minion Pro Display”,
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| − | which is actually a better indication of the information the font
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| − | designer wants to convey.
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| − | That leaves the question of what the actual size is of a font used
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| − | at “10 pt”. As explained above, there are no hard rules. But usually
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| − | for a modern font the “10 pt" is the _vertical_ space needed to enclose
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| − | all of the ascenders and descenders in the font when all the glyphs
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| − | are overlaid on top of each other. Traditionally, this was also the
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| − | with of an ‘em’, going back to the Roman era, where inscribed text fitted
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| − | characters into a square. But these days that is no longer always the
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| − | case, since some font families have condensed or extended members
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| − | (and it really only applied to ‘upright’ fonts anyways).
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| − | ==== ''If two fonts have the same size, is a dimension which has the same length in both. Which one is this?'' ====
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| − | No, there is no such thing. "TeX Gyre Bonum and TeX Gyre Adventor at twelve
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| − | point” really only means this:
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| − | "TeX Gyre Bonum at a somewhat larger size than the TeX Gyre Bonum designer
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| − | intended and TeX Gyre Adventor at a somewhat larger size than the TeX Gyre
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| − | Adventor designer intended."
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| − | [[Category:Fonts]]
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