A ligature is an visual and/or technical connection of two ore more letters or glyphs.

Figures with a uniform height similar or equal to the cap height of the font.

Versions of a typeface tailored for use at specific size ranges (e.g., “caption”, “text”, “display”, etc.). Differences in contrast and tracking are common.

Rounded or pointed letters will usually have an overshoot, which means the character design extends over the x-height, cap height or under the baseline to make the letter appear of equal size with the rest of the letters.

Figures with an individual width, based on the glyph design.

Figures with an identical width.

The practice, action, or system of inserting points or other small marks into texts, in order to aid interpretation; division of text into sentences, clauses, etc.

Sans serif (from French “sans” meaning “without”) is a category of typefaces that do not have serifs.

A small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter.

Slab serif typefaces are characterized by their thick, block-like serifs.

Small capitals (or just small caps) can be used in bicameral scripts. They use the design of capital letters, but are smaller (roughly the size of the lowercase letters) and usually replace the lowercase letters.

The main vertical strokes of letters.

The characteristic change of stroke width across all letters of a font. The stress is usually either diagonal, vertical, or there is no or hardly any stress for typefaces with no obvious change of stroke widths.

A descending often decorative stroke.

In typography, type specimen refers to a any presentation of a certain typeface to showcase its design and/or use.

A type case is a compartmentalized (usually wooden) box used to store movable type used in letterpress printing.

The foundation of typography—individual letters meant to be set and printed.

The original form of movable type meant for manual typesetting. (In contrast to the fonts made for hot metal typesetting since the end of the 19th century.)

An underline is a horizontal line immediately below a portion of writing.

Roman refers to the upright styles of the Latin script in contrast to italic styles or special categories such as blackletter.

A person who sets type.

A bar of softer metal (e.g. copper or nickel + brass) in which the punch is driven into to create a “sunken” image of a letter. Once the matrix was “fitted” it can be used to cast letters.

Type set up and held in reserve for future uses. Also called live matter or standing type.

The space between columns.

Rivers, or rivers of white are gaps which appear to run through a paragraph of text, due to a coincidental alignment of spaces.

The body text or body copy is the text forming the main content of designs (like ads) or entire publications (like magazines, books and so on).

A galley is a (usually metal) tray used for letterpress printing. The individual lines are first set in the composing stick and then combined to columns in the galley. The galley usually has 3 closed sides. The one open side is used to push the assembled column easily from the galley.

Material to create spaces in letterpress printing. It is non-printing because its height is lower than the faces of the letters. Originally also called “lead”.

A font with a stroke weight bigger than what would be considered “normal” or “regular”.

A font with a lighter stroke weight than what would be considered “normal” or “regular”.

A font with a stroke weight in between what would be considered regular and bold.

A font with a very large stroke weight.

A font with a width smaller than what would be considered “normal” or “regular”.

A font with a width greater than what would be considered “normal” or “regular”.

Any set of characters, e.g. of a specific font. Not to be mixed up with “character encoding”.

An OpenType variable font is one in which the equivalent of multiple individual fonts can be compactly packaged within a single font file. This is done by defining variations within the font, which constitute a single- or multi-axis design space within which many font instances can be interpolated.

The cyma is an element employed to equalize the spacing of irregular letters by placing it where the space is open and requires something more than the plain letter to make word appear solid. This character derives its name from the Greek its undulating form resembling a wave. The cyma is usually attached to the letters A, L, M, W, etc.

A bodkin is a piercing tool used in hand typesetting for extracting a piece of type from a form.

A chase is a metal frame used to hold type in place while printing.

The tool to tighten and loosen letterpress quoins.

… wood or metal blocks of various widths and lengths to fill in the chase for lock up.

A (usually cylinder-based) printing press for creating simple proof prints.

Small caps will often be slightly or significantly larger than the x-height of the font. Some typefaces have additional small caps which match the x-height and they are called petite caps. Both types can be access through distinct OpenType features: SMCP (small caps) and PCAP (petite capitals).

An en is a typographic unit, half of the width of an em. By definition, it is equivalent to half of the height of the font.

An ink ball (or dabber) was a tool to apply ink to the plate or type to be printed. An ink ball usually consists of a piece of leather stuffed with wool and a wooden handle.

A galley rack holds standing jobs on galleys.

Usually wooden cabinets with boards open on at least one side to slide matter on an off.

Quadrat-high (or lead-high) means: of a height of letterpress furniture.

A usually wooden letterpress tool (used in combination with a mallet or quoin key) for leveling a form of type.

A tool to cut slugs and reglets.

An instrument for measuring type height.

An instrument used for controlling measurements of electrotypes, stereos, cylinder backings, rubber blocks etc.

An imposing stone (also known as composing stone) is a slab of usually stone or metal, on which the pages or columns of type are imposed/made into forms.

Putting metal type back into the typecase after printing.

The physical or virtual width of a glyph/character.

Composing rules (or setting rules) are metal strips to be placed inside the composing stick to set the measure, to remove the line more easily or to set one line of type over another more easily.

Letterforms drawn or written without contrast.

Monospaced describes a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space.

A decorative illustration on a block used in printing along with the text, e.g. at the beginning or end of a book or chapter of a book.

The hyphen (‐) is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word.

The pastedown endpaper is the portion of the endpaper that is glued to the inner boards of a hardback book.

The free endpaper is the inner leaf of an endpaper secured at its binding edge to the first or last page of a book. It is forming a flyleaf.

An endpaper is a folded sheet of paper having one leaf pasted flat against the inside of the front or back cover of a book and the other pasted at the base to the first or last page.

A catchword is a word placed at the foot of a handwritten or printed page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the bookbinder or printer make sure that the leaves were bound in the right order or that the pages were set up in the press in the right order.

An endband is a part of a (hardcover) book that consists of a small cord or strip of material affixed near the spine to provide structural reinforcement and decorative effect.

The endband at the bottom of a book.

The Spine of a book refers to the outside edge of the book where the pages are gathered and bound.

The fore edge is the edge of a book’s text block opposite the spine.

The block of paper formed by the cut and stacked pages of a book, not including covers, boards, end papers, dust jacket or other accoutrements.

The half title or bastard title is a page usually carrying only little information (like the title)—as opposed to the title page. The half title is usually the first page of the text block.

Book edges are the top, bottom, and un-hinged outer sides of a book.

A usually small and cheap book with a paper cover and glued pages. A paperback book will be a softcover book at the same time, but not every softcover book can be considered a paperback.

A book with stiff boards that is bound and covered in materials such as cloth, paper, or leather.

The title page of a book (or other written work) is the page at or near the front which displays its title and usually additional information like author's/editor's name, the publisher and the place and date of publication.

String used for tying up a columns or pages of letterpress type after making up. This is done to to secure the columns or pages temporarily until they are imposed or to store them (see standing matter).

Desktop publishing (abbreviated as DTP) combines a personal computer and WYSIWYG design software to create publication documents.

The composition of movable type by hand—in contrast to hot metal typesetting.

A type founder is a person who is casting metallic printer's type.

A flong (also mat or stereo mould) is a relief impression (in materials such as papier-mâché or plaster mould) of a forme created from handset metal type and/or printing blocks. It is used to cast a so-called stereotype, which is then used for printing.

A solid flat or semi-circular plate of type metal, usually of an entire artwork or page of handset type, created from a stereo mould (see flong).

A tympan is made from a soft material (such as parchment, leather, paper, rubber). It is used for letterpress printing and covers the the platen or printing cylinder while printing. It provides a necessary flexibility and can also be used to adjust the printing pressure. The tympan can be mounted permanently on the platen or printing cylinder or it mounted to a frame, which is then put between the platen and the forme while printing.