Re: ascender, descender, cap-height and x-height

At 08:43 PM 30-01-00 -0800, David Lemon wrote:

>> David, does this basically mean that OpenType would mandate that the
>> em square be from the top of the "nominal" ascender to the bottom of
>> the nominal descender?

>Since this change to the OpenType spec is not yet approved by both
>development partners (Adobe and Microsoft), I can't promise that's what it
>will say. I can say that's what Adobe is doing in its OpenType fonts, and
>recommends to other developers. We consider it important, because without
>this one can't know the position of the baseline within the em height. And
>in the (unusual but real) case of fonts with a non-square em, there's no
>other way to even define the em height.

David, a couple of questions:

Since the baseline position varies within the em height depending on the
design, how is this information useful?

Will having (em = ascender + descender) create cliping problems in TrueType
fonts for stacked diacritics?

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks
Vancouver, BC
www.tiro.com
tiro@tiro.com

Received on Monday, 31 January 2000 17:38:38 UTC