Font terminology
Fonts are defined with this font terminology:
- Type family
- A type family is a group of typefaces that share basic design characteristics and encompass many
size and style variations. Examples of type families include:
- Courier
- Helvetica
- Times New Roman
- Typeface
- A typeface is a collection of characters having the same style, weight, and width. Examples
of these attributes are shown in Font terminology.
- Style is the inclination of a letter around a vertical axis; for example, roman (upright) or italic (slanted).
- Weight is the degree of boldness of a typeface; for example, medium or bold.
- Width is the horizontal variation in a character design; for example, normal or condensed.
- Type font, type size, and complement
- A type font, or font, is a collection of characters sharing type family, typeface, and type size.
Collections of characters for expanded core fonts are referred to as complements.
Note: In Type Transformer, complements are called character lists.
The next figure shows the basic components of a Helvetica type family, including typeface, style, weight, width, complement, type font, and type size.