5 ms·

Do you really see a clear cap-height (and baseline, to measure it from) here? https://software.sil.org/awami/design/ https://software.sil.org/awami/design/ Or

by jfk13 6y ago

Do you really see a clear cap-height (and baseline, to measure it from) here? https://software.sil.org/awami/design/ https://software.sil.org/awami/design/ Or look at Thai: https://omniglot.com/writing/thai.htm https://omniglot.com/writing/thai.htm. Yes, there's a pretty clear upper and lower "line", but it's much more like an equivalent to ex-height in Latin than to cap-height. Giving it a different name doesn't help: if you put Latin text with 16px cap-height alongside Thai text with the "body" of the letters sized to 16px, they'll look awful (the Thai will be much too big). (As someone else has already said, ex-height is usually a more useful measure for Latin script, and that would be closer to matching how something like Thai might be measured -- though it'd be a bit on the small side. And it wouldn't interoperate well with Chinese, for example.)

crazygringo 6y ago
> Do you really see a clear cap-height (and baseline, to measure it from) here? I absolutely do. Do you... not? You can do a quick web search for "Arabic type anatomy" that will make it crystal clear for you. I mean it obviously has nothing to do with "capital" letters (so a more inclusive term would be better, probably), but there are clear upper and lower "bounds" beyond which ascenders/descenders poke out. The relative sizing of fonts (and line heights) across languages is a separate issue, and is complex. But it's a disaster in interfaces today, where e.g. traditional Chinese characters sized to cap height become virtually illegible they're so small.
- taejo 6y ago
  > I absolutely do. Do you... not? You can do a quick web search for "Arabic type anatomy" that will make it crystal clear for you. I also do not. When I search for that, I find articles like https://www.type-together.com/arabic-type-anatomy https://www.type-together.com/arabic-type-anatomy which say things like "Do not use ‘x-height’ and ‘cap height’ simply because there are no ‘x’ or capitals in Arabic." So since you do see such a thing, maybe you could show us? You could give a specific link or make a drawing.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    The article you linked clearly shows lines labeled "baseline", "descender", "Latin x-height" and "ascender". And yes, it says do not use the term "cap height" but I already stated that a more inclusive term would be better. It's still obvious what's being referred to. In current practice (e.g. put roman and Arabic fonts next to each other on the same line in your browser), the Latin "baseline" and "cap height" lines clearly are conceptually equivalent to the Arabic "descender" and "ascender" lines. Do you see it now? I don't understand how anyone's trying to argue that there are languages that don't have obvious logical top/bottom boundaries (or right/left for vertical scripts) for basing font metrics on.
    - taejo 6y ago
      > I don't understand how anyone's trying to argue that there are languages that don't have obvious logical top/bottom boundaries (or right/left for vertical scripts) for basing font metrics on. I don't argue that at all. I agree that Arabic has ascent and descent. I just don't see that Arabic ascent corresponds to Latin cap height (rather than, say, Latin ascent).
      - int_19h 6y ago
        The argument that the article is, essentially, trying to make is that some such correspondence obviously does exist visually - i.e. that you can write e.g. English and Arabic text in the same line, sized such that they look the same size.
  - jussij 6y ago
    > I also do not. I might be missing something obvious here. However, referring to your link all the text is arrange into nice equally space lines that are pleasing to the eye. Doesn't that nice layout suggest there is some sort of 'cap height' value at play which then allows those vertical lines to work together so well? Edit: The way I see 'cap height' is it is some sort of maximum guaranteed value. Now it turns out for English all capitals will have that exact same maximum value. But the value is not saying all capital letters must take on that maximum value, instead it is that all the characters in the font will not be bigger than that size.

by jfk13 6y ago

crazygringo 6y ago

> Do you really see a clear cap-height (and baseline, to measure it from) here? I absolutely do. Do you... not? You can do a quick web search for "Arabic type anatomy" that will make it crystal clear for you. I mean it obviously has nothing to do with "capital" letters (so a more inclusive term would be better, probably), but there are clear upper and lower "bounds" beyond which ascenders/descenders poke out. The relative sizing of fonts (and line heights) across languages is a separate issue, and is complex. But it's a disaster in interfaces today, where e.g. traditional Chinese characters sized to cap height become virtually illegible they're so small.

taejo 6y ago
> I absolutely do. Do you... not? You can do a quick web search for "Arabic type anatomy" that will make it crystal clear for you. I also do not. When I search for that, I find articles like https://www.type-together.com/arabic-type-anatomy https://www.type-together.com/arabic-type-anatomy which say things like "Do not use ‘x-height’ and ‘cap height’ simply because there are no ‘x’ or capitals in Arabic." So since you do see such a thing, maybe you could show us? You could give a specific link or make a drawing.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  The article you linked clearly shows lines labeled "baseline", "descender", "Latin x-height" and "ascender". And yes, it says do not use the term "cap height" but I already stated that a more inclusive term would be better. It's still obvious what's being referred to. In current practice (e.g. put roman and Arabic fonts next to each other on the same line in your browser), the Latin "baseline" and "cap height" lines clearly are conceptually equivalent to the Arabic "descender" and "ascender" lines. Do you see it now? I don't understand how anyone's trying to argue that there are languages that don't have obvious logical top/bottom boundaries (or right/left for vertical scripts) for basing font metrics on.
  - taejo 6y ago
    > I don't understand how anyone's trying to argue that there are languages that don't have obvious logical top/bottom boundaries (or right/left for vertical scripts) for basing font metrics on. I don't argue that at all. I agree that Arabic has ascent and descent. I just don't see that Arabic ascent corresponds to Latin cap height (rather than, say, Latin ascent).
    - int_19h 6y ago
      The argument that the article is, essentially, trying to make is that some such correspondence obviously does exist visually - i.e. that you can write e.g. English and Arabic text in the same line, sized such that they look the same size.
- jussij 6y ago
  > I also do not. I might be missing something obvious here. However, referring to your link all the text is arrange into nice equally space lines that are pleasing to the eye. Doesn't that nice layout suggest there is some sort of 'cap height' value at play which then allows those vertical lines to work together so well? Edit: The way I see 'cap height' is it is some sort of maximum guaranteed value. Now it turns out for English all capitals will have that exact same maximum value. But the value is not saying all capital letters must take on that maximum value, instead it is that all the characters in the font will not be bigger than that size.