Baseline (typography)

Baseline (typography)

In typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and under which descenders extend.

In the example to the right, the letter 'p' has a descender; the other letters sit on the (red) baseline.

Most, but not all typefaces are similar in the following ways as regards the baseline:

*Lined or tabular figures (see Arabic numerals), and capital letters sit entirely above the baseline.
*The following text figures have descenders: 3 4 5 7 9.
*The following lowercase letters have descenders: g j p q y.
*Glyphs with rounded lower extents (0 3 5 6 8 c C G J o O Q U) break the baseline slightly to create the optical illusion that they sit on the baseline.

The vertical distance of the base lines of consecutive lines in a paragraph is also known as line height or leading, although the latter can also refer to the base-line distance minus the font size.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Baseline — The word baseline may refer to one of the following: * baseline (configuration management) is the process of managing change in hardware, software, firmware, documentation, measurements, etc * Baseline (magazine) * baseline (pharmacology) *… …   Wikipedia

  • Baseline (magazine) — Baseline magazine is a magazine devoted to typography, book arts and graphic design.Since Baseline 19 , which appeared in 1995, Baseline has been published by Bradbourne Publishing, co edited by Mike Daines and Hans Dieter Reichert and art… …   Wikipedia

  • Typography — Typographer redirects here. For the Typographer brand typewriter, see Typographer (typewriter). Not to be confused with topography or typology. In philately typography , especially in the case of 19th century stamps, refers to letterpress… …   Wikipedia

  • baseline — /bays luyn /, n. Also, base line. 1. Baseball. the area between bases within which a base runner must keep when running from one base to another. 2. Tennis. the line at each end of a tennis court, parallel to the net, that marks the in bounds… …   Universalium

  • List of Baseline magazine issues — Following is a list of Baseline magazine issues compiled from the Baseline website [http://www.baselinemagazine.com] and printed magazines.Only content with attributed authors is included in the table.mall format Baselines published by TSI and… …   Wikipedia

  • History of Western typography — Contemporary typographers view typography as craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as… …   Wikipedia

  • Overshoot (typography) — Overshoot is the degree that capital letters go below the baseline or above the cap height, and lowercase letters go below the baseline or above the mean line. In typeface design, the overshoot of a round or pointed letter (like O or A) is the… …   Wikipedia

  • Web typography — Web fonts allow Web designers to use fonts that are not installed on the viewer s computer. Web typography refers to the use of fonts on the World Wide Web. When HTML was first created, font faces and styles were controlled exclusively by the… …   Wikipedia

  • Comparison of layout engines (Web Typography) — The following tables compare support for different font formats and support for CSS3 font resources for a number of layout engines. Web fonts were initially defined (but later dropped) from CSS2, then added into CSS3. The specification is… …   Wikipedia

  • Point (typography) — Point, in typography, may also refer to a dot grapheme (e.g.: full stop; Interpunct) as in the expression, decimal point. For non typographical uses, see Point (disambiguation). Contents 1 French printer’s points …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”