Baseline (typography)

The baseline ( baseline also ) is the base line of uppercase and lowercase letters. The space above the font or position line is designed for center-height, ascenders and accents, the space below the descenders. In some countries it is mandatory for specifications or standards for the baseline. For many font foundries, however, the x is placed exactly in the center of the cone, so that remains the same room for the upper and lower lengths.

According to this principle all the writings of the Monotype Corporation for example be produced. In Germany, the so-called normal baseline, which provides a different ratio of the lengths of the center-height, and for each degree ascenders applies. The descender is a room from 20 to 27 percent of the cone at the different font sizes, and therefore the descenders need to be changed several times during the magazine production. Another disadvantage of the normal baseline is that in some degrees remains the descenders too little space and has constrained and stunted particularly the lower sweep of g. The photo set requires identical relations with all font sizes, because here all or several degrees of the same negative is used, at least the baseline must be clearly defined before the start of the drawing.

It's good if in drawing a large enough space for the accents on the upper case is scheduled. When considering some of the older writings can be noted that the emphasis was placed makeshift later. For the readability of some languages ​​(eg French, Czech, Hungarian, Polish), however, are the accents of great importance. From experience, you should give the accents around eight per cent of the amount of the total cone. Since this problem occurs only in uppercase letters, you can see the ascenders of the lowercase hold greater than the basic form of capital letters; so you can leave protrude the ascenders of b, d, f, h, k, 1 and ß in the cases provided for the accents of uppercase room.