Typographic Terms

Absolute measurements: measurements that are a definite number. Used to express exact points in typography that are fixed.

Relative measurements: measurements that are not quite exact and are not constant finite expressions. These measurements are usually linked to something and therefore increase at a different rates. This type of measurement is defined by a relationship not something absolute.

Points: measurement related to a type's size. This measurement is for the character block size and not the actual character.

Pica: used to measure lines of text, this measurement is six to an inch.

X-height: used as a designing guide, x-height is the height of a lower letter x.

Em: a unit of measure dependent on the typesize. Used to help build a text and determine spacing.

En: one half the size of an em. Used also as a size measurement for the symbol for "to" and for nested clauses.

Dashes...

Hyphens: 1/3 the size of an em, this dash is used to combine two words, break up syllables into specific blocks of text, and makes words easier to understand by separating them.

En Dash: 1/2 the size of an em, this dash is used to pages, dates, and to substitute "to" in phrases involving travel.

Em Dash: standard dash, em dashes come in two forms. Standard em dashes are used to make lines since they are long enough to connect with other characters, and punctuating em dashes are used to house nested clauses because they leave room to not touch surrounding characters.

Alignment: the positioning of text in a text block, in a vertical and horizontal fashion.

Justification: aligning text equally on all sides in relation to area left in the top, bottom, left, and right. Sometimes employing excessive use of the hyphen to keep text equal.

Flush Left: aligning words along the left margin of the page for easier reading and to follow handwriting patterns.

Flush Right: harder to read and function correctly, this alignment is used to line up on the right margin and lay ragged on the left. Drastically different to body copy and sometimes used with picture captions.

Letterspacing: Addition of space between characters so no collisions occur.

Kerning: Subtraction of space between characters to allow words to form from letters.

Tracking: adjusting the spacing between characters in words.

Word Spacing: spacing between words not between characters.

Widow: lone word at end of paragraph.

Orphan: last one or two lines of a paragraph cut off from main paragraph to start a new column.

Leading: space between lines of text in a text body. With too much a text is drawn out and looks awkward, while too little leading caused overlap and inability to read easily.

Indents: space put in between a text line and the margin. Used to organize text and determined by a grid or point size.

First Line Indent: usually not a real first line indent, this phrase refers to the space between the first line of new text from the margin. It is possible to do the very first paragraph, but often this is awkward to look at.

Hanging Indent: this type of indent refers to the opposite of a first line indent. Every line of text is indented except for the first line.