EXPOSITION TO TYPESETTING

Also known as letter setting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical types or the digital equivalent and the process of setting text onto a page. The secret to a more inviting reading experience is typesetting; this implies that, a typist ought to develop certain computer skills that would enhance the page layout of his work in such a manner that can be enticing to readers.

In typesetting, stored letters and other symbols are retrieved and ordered according to language orthography for visual display. Typesetting requires one or more fonts. Think that you’re ready to publish your book? Think again. Before you send your book off to the printers, you not only need to make sure that the content of your book is good — it also has to look good on the page. If the interior design of your book is similarly slipshod, your readers will also discover a sudden urge to back away slowly.

STAGES OF TYPESETTING

More plainly, typesetting is majorly concerned about the arrangement of text in a visible, comprehensive and readable form. The ability to create an effective typesetting is depended on the knowledge and skill of the typist in relationship to effective use of the program with which he/she is working. However, there are always two stages of typesetting namely; Pre-typesetting and Post-typesetting.

PRE-TYPE SETTINGS

These are some of the fundamental settings a typist should put in place before the commencement of lettering and during the entire process of transferring the data from its source into a readable form. They include;

Selection of Paper Size/type
1. Margin Setting
1. Column Setting
1. Line Space setting
1. Font size and style setting

POST-TYPE SETTINGS

In this stage, which occurs towards the end of book production, the typesetter arranges the book’s interior to create the best reading experience. He or she will, among other things:

Determine the size of the margins,
1. Style the chapter starts, and
1. Font typeface and size for the content

TYPES OF TYPESETTING

The types of typesetting are defined by the nature of the work a typist have at hand. A typesetter or typist will spend much time deciding. For instance, Should he/she go with serif or sans-serif? This will probably depend on his genre and the nature of the work at hand. In turn, the use of font changes the placement of the drop caps and illustrations. Everything on the page is part of a complex and delicate dynamic that communicates to the reader on a subliminal level — and getting one element wrong could be a capital offense in the making. Here are some of the commonly worked types of typesetting:

Letter Typesetting,
C V Typesetting,
Cover Letter Setting,
Examination Question Typesetting,
Invitation Card Setting,
Event Program Setting,
Project Typesetting,
Field Report Typesetting,
Reference Page Typesetting,
Book Typesetting,
Magazine/Journal Typesetting,
Newspaper Typesetting ETC

PROBLEMS IN TYPESETTING

Euan Monaghan, an art director, and professional typesetter, illuminates a few of the common problems that typesetting addresses including;

A ‘ladder’ of hyphenated words. Throws the paragraph off balance.

Poor word spacing. Too tight, too loose, or sometimes both in the same paragraph.

Creates ugly ‘rivers’ of white space. Hyphens used instead of en- or em-dashes.

Two spaces used between sentences. Leading (inter-line spacing) too tight throughout. Text needs room to breathe.
Kerning: Adjusting the spacing between characters.

Orphans and widows: Precluding “widows,” which occur when the last row of a paragraph ends on the top of a page, and “orphans,” which are its vice-versa.

Word stacks: This occurs when consecutive rows of text start or end with the same word. Avoid it.

Drop caps: Stylizing the first character of the first paragraph in a chapter.
Book blocks: The block of text on each facing page of a book should end on the same row.

FONTS & TYPEFACES

In the days of Analog printing, every page was laboriously set out in frames with metal letters. Metal letters were rolled in ink, and then it was pressed down into a clean piece of paper. Printers needed thousands of physical metal blocks each with the character it was meant to represent set out in relief (the typeface). This technology is the origin of typefaces and fonts.

In the Analog age, typeface described all of the thousands of metal blocks a printer might have on hand and which had been designed with the same basic design principles. A font on the other hand described a subset of blocks in that very typeface. For example, bolded Garamond in 12 points was considered a different font than normal Garamond in 8 points, and italicized Times New Roman at 24 points would be considered a different font than italicized Times New Roman at 28 points.

A typeface is the overall design of lettering; the design can include variations such as extra bold, bold, regular, light, italic, condensed, extended etc. Each design variation of the typeface is a font. The Art and Craft of designing typefaces is called “Type Designing”. Designers of typefaces are called “Type Designers” and are often employed by “Type Foundries.” In digital typography, type designers are sometimes called “Font Developers or Font Designers.”

Every typeface is a collection of glyphs, each glyphs represents an individual letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbol. The whole concept was however revolutionized with the rise of Desktop Publishing. Fonts were no longer thousands of tiny blocks of movable type; they become digital computer files that sealed themselves up or down dynamically to whatever size or weight a typist wanted.

In recent times, there is growing acceptance that the terms font and typeface can be used interchangeably. So the distinction between the process (typeface) and end result (font) disappeared in a puff of binary magic. Only experts’ really need to worry about it. Summarily, the difference between a font and a typeface is the same as that between songs (font) and an album (typeface). The former makes up the latter.

FEATURES OF FONTS

Caps: Depending on the type of document, a typist may choose between uppercase and lowercase.
Superscript and subscripts: These are reduced size letters and numerals used in mathematical and scientific notations such as E = MC² and H₂O.
Ordinals and Superiors: These are alphabetic characters used for indicating numeric values such as 1^st and 5th.
Point Size: Size of fonts is generally specified in points. In typography, the smallest unit of measurement is a point specified as “pt”.
Line Spacing: This is the space between lines of text. This helps the reader to read the text comfortably. The higher the point of a font, higher line spacing is required.
Weight: The amount of boldness in a stroke is called weight such as Thin or Light, Regular, Bold, Extra Bold etc. this is useful for emphasis and easy attraction of the reader.
Text Alignment: Text can be composed in different alignments, the major ones include
1. Left Align
2. Right Align
3. Justified Align
4. Center Align
Bubble and River: An unwanted ugly white space which appears between words is called a Bubble while series of spaces or bubbles make an ugly white line in a paragraph called a River. This commonly occurs due to justification alignment.
Hyphenation: The hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single words into parts, or to join ordinary separate words into a single word
Widow: is a small word or the last syllable of a hyphenated word at the end of a paragraph. This is considered to be typographically distracting to the reader.
Orphan: A short isolated line at the top of a column or a page. It is usually the last line of a paragraph from the proceeding column. Orphan confuses the reader because they are separated from the main paragraph and due to its position; an orphan often causes typographical distraction. Text composition which leaves the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a column also causes distraction to the reader and also known as orphan.
Style: Typographic styles like italics, underline and outline can be used creatively to provide expressions to text. These features are important for making emphasis and creation of quick attraction and beautification of texts.
Ascender and Descender: A portion of the alphabet that ascends or exceeds above the X height portion of an alphabet is known as Ascender while the portion of an alphabet that goes below or extends downwards from the X height is called a Descender.
Punctuations: This is another important feature of font that cannot be ignored by a typist. They are usually useful in sentence construction or text composition. Every good typist must know how to effectively punctuate texts.

CLASSIFICATION OF FONTS

Serif: A serif is the pointed ending of a stroke or alphabet inspired by the ancient letters carved on stone using chisels. Serif fonts are known for their readability and are widely used in book, newspapers, magazines etc.
Sans Serif: Sans means without. Sans Serif means without Serif. These fonts have blunt endings to the strokes. Almost all the strokes look like equal thickness, as if drawn by a marker pen. It is widely used in logos, symbols, packaging, signage, websites, mobile phone interfaces, gaming consoles etc.
Script: Script fonts recreate the visual styling of calligraphy. The letters imitate the feeling of calligraphic nibs, with a slant to the right and changing thickness of strokes. These fonts give a festival and personal look to the reader and commonly used in wedding invitation cards.

Section 4