Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is a font?
A: A font is a collection of symbols that are visually represented. Its appearance is determined by various characteristics, including the type family, typeface, and proportions.
Q: What is a font in a computer?
A: A font in a computer is a digital file that holds the data needed to display a specific set of text characters. It’s the software that tells the computer how to render each character, such as a letter, number, or symbol.
Q: What is the item/part of a font?
A: Fonts consist of Glyphs
Q: What is a glyph?
A: Glyph is a graphical representation of a symbol.It may be a single letter, number, or punctuation mark.
Q: What is a character?
A: A character is an abstract concept, like the letter ‘A’ or the number ‘5’. It represents a single unit of text. It can be depicted by different glyphs.
Q: What is a glyphset?
A: A glyphset is the collection of all the individual symbols, or glyphs, that are included in a font file. It’s essentially the complete inventory of all the characters, numbers, punctuation marks, and special symbols that the font can render.
The size and complexity of a font’s glyphset determine how many languages and typographic features it can support. A basic font might have a small glyphset for a single language, while a professionally-designed font might have a very large glyphset to support a wide range of languages, symbols, and typographic nuances. But it is necessary to remember that the number of glyphs of the glyphset influences the weight of the font file.
Q: What is a typeface
A: If simply, it is the overall design of a set of characters.
It has size, weight, width, slope, and other variations. It is often confused with the term font.
Q: What is a font family?
A: It is a group of related, similar in design typefaces, such as Arial, Arial Bold, and Arial Italic.
Q: What is a font style?
A: Font style is the way the typeface looks. It is a subset of a font’s overall properties, which also include slope, weight, and width. The most common font styles are normal, italic, and oblique.
Q: What are font properties?
A: Here are some of the most common font properties:
- Font style;
- Font variant;
- Font weight;
- Font size/line height;
- Font family;
- Font types.
Q: What is a font type?
A: is a group of fonts with some common features. While people often use “font” and “typeface” interchangeably, “font type” is a more specific term that helps to categorize different families of fonts based on their shared design features.
The main font types or classifications include:
- serif
- sans serif
- script(handwritten)
- monospaced
- display(decorative)
Q: What is a font format?
A: In the context of computer files, a font format refers to the specific file type used to store and display a font’s data. It’s essentially the digital container that holds the font’s design information, including the shapes of the characters (glyphs), their spacing, and other typographic features.
The choice of font format is crucial because it determines a font’s compatibility with different operating systems, applications, and web browsers.
Q: What font formats are there?
A: The most known font formats are:
- TTF
- WOFF
- WOFF2
- OTF
- CFF
- EOT
- Type1
- SVG
Q: What is the most popular/used font format?
A: WOFF2 (Web Open Font Format 2.0): This is the current gold standard for web fonts. Its superior compression and support for modern typographic features make it the most efficient format for fast-loading websites. It is supported by almost all modern browsers and is recommended for web developers.
Q: What is a font extension?
A: Font extension is the file extension at the end of a font file’s name (e.g., .ttf, .otf, .woff). It tells the computer what type of font format it is, which affects how the font’s data is stored and displayed.
Q: What is Unicode?
A: Unicode is an international standard for character encoding. Its main purpose is to provide a unique number, called a code point, for every character in every language in the world, on every platform.
Q: What is an icon font?
A: An icon font is a font where the glyphs are not letters, punctuation marks or numbers, but instead are small images, emojies or icons.
Q: What is a dyslexic font?
A: A dyslexic font is the one specifically designed with features to make reading easier for people with dyslexia. The designers of these fonts often aim to address some of the common reading challenges associated with the condition, such as letters appearing to move, rotate, or be swapped.
Q: What is font readability?
A: Font readability refers to how easily a reader can understand a text. It is a measure of the comfort and speed with which a person can process and comprehend the information typeset.
Q: What is font accessibility?
A: Font accessibility refers to the practice of choosing and using fonts and typographic settings in a way that makes text easy to read and understand for everyone, especially for people with disabilities, such as low vision, dyslexia, or cognitive impairments.
Q: What are fallback fonts?
A: A fallback font is a backup font that a system, application, or website uses when the primary, preferred font is unavailable. It ensures that your text will be displayed no matter what.
Q: What is font metadata?
A: Font metadata is information embedded within a font file. It’s the data about the font itself that helps applications, operating systems, and users identify, categorize, and manage fonts.