Courier monospace fonts and line spacing
Mark
at 12 point size. What's less consistent is the default line spacing.
You expect six lines per inch, typewriter style, but most Couriers
won't provide that unless you force it using formatting. Even Windows
Courier New, plainest of the janes, won't do it.
The only Courier fonts I've found that give six lines are the ones that
come with Final Draft demos, Courier Final Draft and Final Draft Heavy.
I'm wondering if anybody knows why this should even be the case. I
mean, you're probably not even using Courier unless you're trying to
produce some kind of manuscript, or at least a typewriter-like
appearance, so why would you want to use a line spacing that throws off
your page and word counts?
Are there any other Courier versions that make six lines per inch at
12pt?
RSD99
program.
What applications program, and if it's a "word processing program," what
are the interline spacing parameters that are currently set. For instance:
If you are using Micro$loth Wurd, you have several options ... something
like
Single
1.5 Lines
Double
At Least
Exactly
Multiple
Single" line spacing is (normally ... in Wurd, at least) set to 120% of the
font size, so the program would space a 10 point type at 6 lines per inch
(12 points), or 12 point type at roughly 14.4 points, or roughly 5 lines
per inch. The program will give you 6 lines per inch ... for a 12 point
font ... *only* if you set the spacing to 'Exact' and specify 12 point
spacing.
"Mark" <mark....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111607193.1...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Mark
Here's the point. I've done some experimenting with this, by repeating
the same paragraph in a document using various Courier fonts, all at
12pt, to see how the line spacing comes out. The results differ from
font to font, and that's without any fiddling with the paragraph
settings that control line spacing. There's a difference within the
fonts themselves.
What this means in practice, for most Courier versions I've seen, is
that if you happen to be using software that doesn't allow you to make
certain adjustments to line spacing, then you can't get the Courier you
want at the correct font size and spacing. And I can't think of a
sound reason why that should be.
RSD99
tightly spaced if it is used with fixed line spacing at that size.
Even in "old fashioned" hot metal typography, it was customary to insert a
thin space between the lines of type using ... guess what ... a piece of
*lead* space bar. Hence the term "Leading," which is often used to indicate
just how much to (vertically) space the characters.
12 point type set on 12 point (vertical) spacing will normally look too
"scrunched together." A good compromise is often to set the type on 120% of
it's size, and many of the "simpler" programs use that value as a default
spacing. This is probably why Micro$loth Wurd will set 10 point type on a
12 point interline spacing (or 12 point on 14.4 point spacing) when you
select 'Single' in the line spacing menu.
"Mark" <mark....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111612866.5...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Dick Margulis
I don't think you're misreading Mark's question, because everything that
both of you has said is true, as is everything Mark has said. But I
think you're missing Mark's point. Let me try to restate it. Mark, tell
me if I've got it right.
If you turn off the computer and rummage in the closet for your old
manual pica (10 pitch) typewriter, and if you type a single-line-spaced
letter (6 lines per inch), you end up with a dense but readable page.
Your English teacher would have handed it back for retyping, but a
typical business letter would be single-spaced, with line breaks between
paragraphs (block style) or, if you used indented paragraphs, without
line breaks. People read these letters day in and day out without
complaining about scrunching.
Courier, originally designed for the IBM Selectric, follows this same
basic principle--10 pitch, 6 lines per inch, readable when single-spaced.
Now we come to digital versions of Courier/Courier New from various
foundries. In theory, at 12 points, such a font should be 10 pitch (10
monospaced characters per inch). If you set the leading to zero, you
should get 6 lines per inch. And the passage should be as readable as an
old typed page.
However, according to Mark, the internally defined character height in
some of these fonts is not actually 12 points, either because the glyphs
are taller than they ought to be at 10 pitch and thus require more
built-in head space, or because they have plenty of head space at 6
lines per inch, but the designer forgot to build it into the font.
So I take this to be news and to be a valid critique of several digital
versions of Courier. The questions I can think of off the top of my head
are:
• Is Mark's observations accurate when fonts are compared under
controlled conditions?
• Is this a problem with other fonts aside from Courier? (Certainly when
I specify a 10/12 setting in a layout program, I expect to get 6 lines
per inch regardless of the internals of the font.)
• Are some versions of Courier specifically designed to be used at the
"elite" size (10 pt, 12 pitch) and thus assume they will be used with 2
pt leading?
What say you?
Dick
Character
> RSD99 (and Character),
>
?? How did *I* get into this ??
For once, I kept out of something, but am assumed to be there anyway! :)
- Character
Dick Margulis
misremembered it as you. Will the real participant please stand up?
Mark
I would have assumed that adjusting the line spacing -- leading? --
manually was the only way to get six lines per inch, except that I
found out that the Final Draft versions of Courier are spaced like that
naturally. That means you get that spacing even if you're printing
from a plain text editor or some other program that lacks formatting
features.
If you're preparing a manuscript for publication or a screenplay in a
standard submission format, it's expected to have roughly a certain
number of words per page, or a certain amount of screen time per page.
Line spacing that's off by 20% or so will throw off those estimates.
And someone who is using Courier is likely to be trying to conform to
one of those formats, which is why it surprises me so much that so many
Courier fonts are designed the way they are.
Dick Margulis
Mark wrote:
Actually, as several people have pointed out to me, nobody estimates
screenplays or manuscripts that way anymore. They just look at the
wordcount in the file properties ;-)
Mark
got a legible monospace font, double-spaced lines, and adequate
margins, nobody gives a fat rat's hat about the rest. Nobody but me.
But my original comments still stand, and I still think it's odd.
RSD99
[ ;-)) ]
"Character" <Ch...@cters.italic> wrote in message
news:5Fn0e.6068490$f47.1...@news.easynews.com...
RSD99
In my somewhat limited experience, I think it would be "normal" to find
differences between the designs of several versions of a font. Especially
when you are considering a font that is somewhat considered a "standard,"
which would apply to Courier.
I guess we'll have to chalk it up as "just one of those things" ...
"Mark" <mark....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111683990.2...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Tim Murray
> manual pica (10 pitch) typewriter, and if you type a single-line-spaced
> letter (6 lines per inch), you end up with a dense but readable page.
> Your English teacher would have handed it back for retyping, but a
> typical business letter would be single-spaced, with line breaks between
> paragraphs (block style) or, if you used indented paragraphs, without
> line breaks. People read these letters day in and day out without
> complaining about scrunching.
>
> Courier, originally designed for the IBM Selectric, follows this same
> basic principle--10 pitch, 6 lines per inch, readable when single-spaced.
But the spacing of typewriter irrelevant. Spacing is controlled by the gear
affixed to the shaft of the platen (the rubber roller). Some of the most
modern typewriters used stepper motors so you could vary the leading, but for
about 99 per cent of the typewriter's history, the vertical space was fixed,
or, a multiple of a fixed value, based on the spacing of the gear teeth.
Dick Margulis
Tim Murray wrote:
Had you not snipped the OP's question, you would see that typewriter
spacing is entirely relevant TO THE QUESTION HE ASKED.
Tim Murray
I figured what you were saying was that when Howard Kettler designed Courier,
he considered metrics for 10 cpi and 6 lpi, but I was concerned that your
"Courier, originally designed..." sentence could imply to the reader that 6
lines per inch is a function of the font, when it is not. I wanted the OP to
know that 6 lpi is a function of the gears. I guess I didn't make myself
clear.
Dick Margulis
Tim Murray wrote:
Okay. I now understand the point you were trying to make. However the OP
seemed to be well aware of that. He was asking about the _internally
defined_ height of the font, which apparently varies between brands of
"Courier," even though you and I and the OP think that seems odd. This
has nothing to do with the way a page layout program operates
(baseline-to-baseline) but apparently affects the spacing in
word-processing programs--at least in Word (internally defined height
times user-specified multiplier).