T

Tracking

Tracking is similar to Kerning, in that it affects the spacing between letters. But, rather then reducing the space between two letter-faces individually, tracking affects a whole word, or sentence, depending on how much text is selected to track.

Tracking is often used by typesetters and DTP operators to get a line of text to fit. By compressing the space between the letters in a word or line of text, a line that is too long to fit in a column of text can be brought back to fit. This is known as 'negative tracking'.

Positive tracking letters is generally frowned upon by typesetters. This stems partially from a misquote attributed to the typographer Frederic Goudy. Upon receiving an award, printed in his famous Blackletter typeface, Goudy is said to have sneered that;'anyone who would letterspace blackletter would steal sheep'. This has since been mistranslated as; 'anyone who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep".

Whether it is indeed wrong to positively track letters, or not and under what circumstances, is a debate that still rages amongst designers.

See also: Kerning

TrueType fonts

A font technology developed by Apple Computers and adopted by Microsoft. Like PostScript Type 1 fonts, TrueType fonts are scaleable to any size without a loss of quality. Unlike PostScript fonts, they contain all their information - bitmap and vector - within one digital file.

See also: Open Type fonts

Type 1 font

Adobe's Type 1 fonts are PostScript rendered vector typefaces, that allow the typefaces to be enlarged to any size without loss of quality, either on screen or when printed.

Type 1 fonts come in sets of two parts. The screen fonts (or bitmap fonts) - which are used to render the typeface on a computer screen and the printer fonts (or vector outline fonts), which are sent to the printer for smooth high quality output.

See also: Postscript, Vector, Bitmap

Type style

A style of a typeface, such as italic or bold.

Typefaces

extend. type style , typefaces, faces
A typeface is the design of an alphabet. Literally the shape and look and feel of the letters. The differences between typefaces and fonts have become somewhat blurred since the advent of PostScript driven digital typography.

Strictly speaking, the typeface is the style and design of the letterfaces and the term font is used primarilly for describing the digital software file itself.

See also: Fonts, PostScript

Typography

The study, design and usage of fonts and typefaces. At one point, before digital type, a typographer was a specialist in the field of designing and setting type. With the advent of the digital age of desktop publishing there are few, outside of typeface designers, who call themselves typographers. Indeed, every graphic designer should be able to call themselves a typographer to some degree.