Counter (typography)

When counters are not printed inner surfaces of a letter will be described in typography: a closed punches refers to the enclosed inner surfaces of the letters a, b, d, e, g, o, p, q; as open counters the inner surfaces of the remaining characters, for example, h, m, n, or u

The name is derived from the same tools that were originally used in the high pressure process for the production of punches. Since punches in the manual production of printing forms can not be chipped with conventional chisels without destroying the surrounding letters form, they are having preformed Stanzbeiteln knocked out ( engl: to punch = beat ).

The Punzenbreite (or Punzenweite ) of the lowercase letter "n" is used as a reference point for the word space.