Re: List cases for a cap height unit

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Alan Stearns <stearns@adobe.com> wrote:
> It all depends on the font. In some fonts ascent will be significantly
> taller than cap height, so a lowercase 'f' will loom above a capital "A."
> What "size of the text" means is a little fuzzy - is it cap height, ascent,
> the max of those, or an optic average?

For use case 1, "size of the text" means "a normal height for a
capital letter, so it blends in typographically".  For use-cases 2 and
3, it means "the largest height such that, when the image is placed on
the baseline, it doesn't change the line's height".

I *think* that cap height works for both of these definitions.  Am I wrong?


> The discussion so far seems to be around wanting to size things based on cap
> height, which is perfectly fine. Another possible use case could be wanting
> to size things based on ascent, which would require a different unit than
> "cap height." I just want to be precise about what the current proposal will
> be providing.

What, precisely, is a use-case for wanting to base something off of
the ascent?  Describe something an author would want to do, without
using the word "ascent".  ^_^

~TJ

Received on Wednesday, 26 October 2011 17:37:35 UTC