In
typography
Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
, the body height or point size refers to the height of the space in which a
glyph
A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...
is defined.
Originally, in
metal typesetting, the body height or the font (or point) size was defined by the height of the lead
cuboid
In geometry, a cuboid is a hexahedron with quadrilateral faces, meaning it is a polyhedron with six Face (geometry), faces; it has eight Vertex (geometry), vertices and twelve Edge (geometry), edges. A ''rectangular cuboid'' (sometimes also calle ...
(
metal sort) on which the actual font face is moulded. The body height of a metal sort defined the
point size, and was usually slightly larger than the distance between the
ascender and
descender to allow additional space between the lines of text. More space might be achieved by inserting thin long pieces of lead between the lines of text (that is ''
leading
In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...
'').
In digital fonts, the body is now a virtual, imaginary area, whose height still equals the point size as it did in metal type.
The distance between one
baseline and the next is the sum of the body height and the
leading
In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...
,
often expressed as "characters per inch vertically" (as in ) or lines of text per inch (not to be confused with
lines per inch, a measure of printed photograph resolution).
See also
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Point (typography)
In typography, the point is the smallest unit of measure. It is used for measuring font size, leading, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout printing's history. Since the 18th century, the size of a point ...
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Body (typography)
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En
*
Em
*
X-height
*
Small caps
In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are grapheme, characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used i ...
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Body Height (Typography)
Typography