L

Leading

extend. line spacing
Leading is the term applied to the spacing between lines of text. It is called leading due to the fact that, in the days of hot-metal typesetting, strips of lead were used to enlarge the space between lines of type.

Legibility

Legibility is the term used to describe how legible or clear a particular font or typeface is at different sizes and for different purposes.

See also: Readability

Ligatures

Two or more characters combined to form a single character or glyph, for example the lower-case 'f' and 'l'. Ligatures are used to combine certain letters so as to avoid an ugly clash between elements of each character. Ligatures are rarely used for headlines.

Lorem ipsum

Lorem ipsum is latin placeholder text that has traditionally been used by graphic designers to fill up space before the real copy has arrived. It is especially useful because it avoids the problem of clients focussing on the text and allows them to concentrate on the visual design and layout.