Font Glossary – Font Glossary – D

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Descender:
The part of certain lowercase letters that extends below the baseline, as in g, j, y.
DFR:
“DFR” stands for “Deutsche Fraktur” encoding (German Blackletter encoding); this gives blackletter fonts a slightly different keyboard layout. Their altered keyboard layout allows for the setting of German-language text according to older typesetting traditions. DFR-encoded fonts also contain seven ligatures not normally found in digital fonts.
Specifically, DFR-encoded fonts have two different lowercase s glyphs: the long-s and the closing-s. Umlauted characters (Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, and ü) are located in new keyboard positions. In addition to the standard fi and fl ligatures, DFR-encoded fonts include ch, ck, ll, si, ss, st, and tz ligatures.
Display Type:
Type that is used in headlines to emphasize or attract attention, usually 14 point or larger. The term is sometimes used to describe fonts shown on display screens and also to describe more "decorative" styles of type.
Dingbat:
Typographic characters generally not included in a standard font: boxes, arrows, telephones, airplanes and even cutlery and abstract ornaments. Dingbats are often collected together into a single font, for example, ITC Zapf Dingbats.
Drop Cap:
A large initial capital, that is sunk into the lines of text below. Usually indicates the start of a section. Also see elevated cap.
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