Appendix A: Glossary

Accent See diacritic.

Accented Character A character
with a mark added, indicating
a changed phonetic value. See
also diacritic.

AFM (Adobe Font Metrics) A
specification by which font
metrics information (kerning
pairs, character widths, etc.) is
stored.

Aldine Refers to the Venetian
publishing house operated
by Aldus Manutius, 1494-1515.
Francesco Griffo cut the majority
of Aldus s types. Contemporary
type and typography resembling
that of Griffo or Aldus may be
referred to as Aldine.

Align To line up type or other
graphic elements, using a base
or vertical line or grid as a
reference point.

Alignment The positioning of
text or other graphic elements
relative to a set margin. Forms
of alignment include flash left,
flush right, justified, or centered.
Flush left is also known as left
justified or ragged right; flush
right is also known as right
justified or ragged left.

Alphabet The characters maldng
up a particular language,
arranged in their traditional
order.

Alternate Characters A character
with a different design used
as an alternative to a standard
alpha character in a typeface.

Ampersand The symbol devel¬
oped to represent et, the Latin
term for and.

Analphabetic Used with the
alphabet, these typographic
characters lack a place in the
alphabetical order. Diacritics,
such as the umlaut and caron,

and characters such as the
asterisk and ampersand, are
all examples of analphabetics.

Anglo American System A
system devised to regulate the
measurement of type, defined
by the American Typefounders
Association in 1886. In the Anglo
American System, 1 inch =
6 picas = 72 points (approx.).
For comparison, see also the
European System.

Anti-aliasing The smoothing
of the jagged edges in digital
images. By varying the shades
of gray or color at its edges, an
object can blend smoothly into
the background.

Antiqua A European term for
Roman typefaces. The letra
antigua of the Spanish writing
masters, for example, shows
the heavy Italian influence on
letterforms. Also spelled Antileva.

Antique A style of letter used in
display typography from the
late 1800s to the early 1900s.

Aperture The openings of letters
such as 'С,' %' and a.'

Apex Where the strokes of a
character meet at its uppermost
point.

Arm The upward-projecting
strokes or horizontal extensions
found in characters such as 'X'
and 'V.

Ascender The stem of a lower¬
case letter, such as 'b' or %' that
extends above the body of the
letter, or x-height.

Ascender Line The imaginary
horizontal line marldng the
uppermost point of an ascender.

Ascent A character's maximum
distance above the baseline.

ASCII (American Standard Code
for Information Interchange)

A 7-bit character code used in
computing. ASCII encodes 128
alphanumerics and symbols
into assigned numbers for the
purpose of electronic storage
and communication. See
EBCDIC for comparison.

Asterisk A typographic character
used as a reference mark, usually
in the shape of a star and raised
above the baseline.

ATF (American Type Founders)
The largest metal type foundry
in North America. The
Elizabeth, New Jersey-based
company was formed in 1892
through the union of a number
of smaller firms.

ATM (Adobe Type Manager)
A program designed to improve
onscreen display by imaging
fonts direcdy from the
PostScript oudine font, as
opposed to relying solely on
the bitmap font for display.

Axis The axis of a character
usually refers to the axis of its
stroke. There may be multiple
axes in a letterform.

Back Slanting The technique of
drawing or digitally manipulat¬
ing characters at a backward
angle; the opposite angle of
an italic.

Ball Terminal A circular shape at
the end of the arm in characters
such as 'c' and 'y.' Typically
found in Romans and italics
in the style of Bodoni and
Clarendon. See also terminal.

Bar See cross-stroke.

Baseline The imaginary line
supporting the characters in a
font, excluding the descenders
of lowercase letters and other
extended elements, such as the
tail in a 'Q/ Leading is measured