CorporateType

Character set: all characters contained in a font. Every font has a standard character set composed of the capital and lower case letters, numerals and punctuation marks. Some character sets also include additional characters such as country-specific letters, currency symbols, ligatures, etc. PostScript-Type 1 and TrueType fonts can include up to 256 characters.


Character spacing: measurement of the space between the characters of a text.


Expert font: expanded character set with additional characters for specialized applications. An expert font contains characters like true small caps, ligatures, fractions and exponents as well as other special characters.


Hinting: directions (hints) contained in a font to define how individual parts of a vector-defined character (serifs, cross strokes, etc.) should be displayed in pixels, especially at low resolution. Hints ensure that the details of a font are displayed as well and as accurately as possible on an output device such as a monitor or printer.


With and without hints

Kerning: manual or automatic regulation of the spacing of adjacent characters in a text.


With and without kerning

Layout: optimisation of a font according to typographic and aesthetic considerations.


Different character spacing

Ligature: connection of two letters into one character figure, for example, fi, fl. Ligatures improve the legibility of a text by helping the reader better recognize word structures.


With and without ligature