[comp.fonts] Proportional spacing and letters per inch

harper@oravax.UUCP (Douglas Harper) (06/22/89)

How can you determine the nominal number of letters per inch of a
proportionally spaced typeface?  For instance, if the string of ten
letters

	oooooooooo

takes up one inch, is the nominal value 10?

Thanks for your time,

-- 
Douglas Harper              | "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire
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vonzelow@adobe.COM (Jon von Zelowitz) (06/27/89)

In article <963@oravax.UUCP> harper@oravax.UUCP (Douglas Harper) writes:
>How can you determine the nominal number of letters per inch of a
>proportionally spaced typeface?  For instance, if the string of ten
>letters
>
>	oooooooooo
>
>takes up one inch, is the nominal value 10?

A couple of standard measurements for the space taken up by
proportionally-spaced characters in a specified point size are "alphabet
length" and "characters per pica". Alphabet length refers to the measure of
a lower-case alphabet with normal letterspacing. I've also seen similar
measurements using "typical" english-language text as the test string.

    Jon von Zelowitz     ...sun!adobe!vonzelow      My opinions only.