Quote:
Originally Posted by dwig
The ancient and arcane art of typesetting and font design is an ancient art and likely was shaped (warped??) by long term exposure to lead fumes and whatever toxins were in the ink. The theft of some of those mystic terms by modern computer wizards is both evil and usually flawed.
That said, x-height is not a measurement, either absolute or relative, until you add some modifier (large, small, ...) and then is only a relative comparison to other aspects of the characters (usually baseline to a vaguely defined line marking the top of most majuscule letters). It is of no real absolute relation to the point size of a font.
Em, on the other hand, refers to a space normally equal to the width of a majuscule (captial, upper case, ...) M, though many fonts define their em space to a slightly different width, especially italic and various ornamental types.
|
Yes, and if I may hijack this thread a bit, just for a moment, to rant, the idiots who are posting dreck all over the net about how "tall/high x-heights" are better for readability should be hunted down and shot. I now get to hear this repeated often, by print designers who are INSISTING that the fonts that they used in their print design must be used for eBook layout, due to "tall/high x-heights and improved readability."
Even when they look bloody AWFUL/OFFAL.
Or worse, they say, "
sure, you can replace it if you think that the font is too light for eInks," but they expect you to kill yourself finding another font with an "equal" x-height (uuuuuhhhhhhh) that will work with their accent fonts, yadda. OH, yeah, 'cuz, EVERY font lists its relative x-height, right? NOOOOOOooooo, folks, they don't, and nor do most font managers. Surprise! (for that matter, other than Typograf, I defy you to find a font manager that even
lists the font metrics....and the guy who developed Typograf kind of rolls his own, really. When I tried to get MainType to add font metrics, they seemed to think I was insane.)
Oh, and let's not get into, "oh, yeah, and while we're at it, since we're talking eBooks in a world where not every reader can/will display embedded fonts, you also have to make sure that on a reader that
doesn't display embedded fonts, the set
font-size for this large x-height font will be something normal, like 1em, not .8 em or 1.4em or whatever, screwing up the book when a default font is used to display the content."
Do we have an emoty for "locking myself in a soundproof room and screaming myself hoarse?"
/rant
Sorry, now back to our regularly-scheduled program.
Hitch