Discussion True letter height vs. software

[Bobby H]

Points and picas are normal for setting type in layouts for printed pages (newspapers, magazines, etc). In that realm the baseline grid, columns, etc matter more than the physical size of letters.

That points and picas stuff doesn't translate well to sign design. The physical size of the letters matters more there. If a customer wants a set of 24" tall channel letters the physical cap letter height has to be 24" tall, not some fraction of 24" and the remainder being varying amounts of invisible space depending on what typeface was chosen.

CorelDRAW doesn't have an option for sizing letters according to cap letter height, much less any added options for lowercase height. It isn't difficult to manually size a dummy cap letter like "E" to a desired height and copy the values to other text objects. I like how CorelDRAW allows text objects to be aligned to other objects via their baselines (as well as distribute multiple artistic text objects via baselines). I wish Adobe Illustrator could do that. Gotta fart with Smart Guides and manually snapping text objects to other things instead.

A couple or so versions ago Adobe Illustrator added some font height options; it defaults to the normal Em box but has options for cap letter height, lowercase letter height and the ICF box. Illustrator's implementation works reasonably well, but not always. It depends on the chosen font. The same has been true for Flexi and CASmate before that.

Every font file has built in dimensions to define baseline, cap height line, ascender and descender. At first glance it would seem easy for a graphics app to compute the difference between baseline and cap line and arrive at a solution for sizing letters according to physical cap letter size. Unfortunately not all fonts have their cap letters align neatly to the cap letter line. Plenty of sans serif fonts will undershoot or even overshoot the cap letter line. Certain scripts, such as Bickham Script Pro dramatically undershoot the cap letter line; I guess that is done to make room for all the big swooshes in those alternate characters.

So, in the end, there is no neat, one-size-fits-all solution to this problem.

 

[myront]

Here is what I do that works most of the time when using Illustrator. First, under Preferences / Unit - set type to inches (instead of points). Then in the Character menu, click on the 3 bars to fly out options and make sure that "Show Font Height Options" is checked. Then in the box that appears on the Character menu, pick Cap Height (see attachment). Usually when I convert to outlines, it is very close to the correct height in inches on the capital letters.

Thank you Marie, that's awesome. Took me a bit to find it, illustrator isn't my go to.

 

[myront]

Here is what I do that works most of the time when using Illustrator. First, under Preferences / Unit - set type to inches (instead of points). Then in the Character menu, click on the 3 bars to fly out options and make sure that "Show Font Height Options" is checked. Then in the box that appears on the Character menu, pick Cap Height (see attachment). Usually when I convert to outlines, it is very close to the correct height in inches on the capital letters.

Too bad you can't set it as default.

 

[Boudica]

Here is what I do that works most of the time when using Illustrator. First, under Preferences / Unit - set type to inches (instead of points). Then in the Character menu, click on the 3 bars to fly out options and make sure that "Show Font Height Options" is checked. Then in the box that appears on the Character menu, pick Cap Height (see attachment). Usually when I convert to outlines, it is very close to the correct height in inches on the capital letters.

Sweet! Thanks for sharing this. I've never tried it before just now, but your right - it works!

 

[ElfringbE]

Its always been like this with font sizing going back for me tu using cad link & dos.
I setup up the text, copy it, outline one of the copies, figure out the the proportion of the scale needed & scale. Double check the results of the outlined version. Good luck

 

[Ronny Axelsson]

This is how I usually do it in CorelDRAW:
Create a text containing nothing but an "H" and resize it to desired height in mm (value in Property Bar).
Now that you know the exact height of the uppercase H, switch to the text tool and type whatever you want,

 

[kcollinsdesign]

I don't understand the question. The vast majority of well designed fonts are designed for clarity, compositional balance, and readability. "O" and other rounded characters will typically extend beyond the height and baseline of characters with flat bottoms and tops. Same is true for lower case letters, with rounded letters extending beyond the baseline and mean height (X-height is the measure of lower case characters with flat tops and bottoms). Ascenders and descenders will all be different.

The best solution is to determine the space available, and design accordingly. Always take into account margins to separate the message from the background. What looks good on a monitor or piece of paper will change when placed in an environment.

Letter spacing is also an important consideration. Most signs benefit from increased letter spacing. One of my pet peeves (and a common beginner mistake) is tightening letter spacing to fit more characters into a given space. I don't want to even get started with distorting character shapes to fit a space!

 

[DarkerKat]

Here is what I do that works most of the time when using Illustrator. First, under Preferences / Unit - set type to inches (instead of points). Then in the Character menu, click on the 3 bars to fly out options and make sure that "Show Font Height Options" is checked. Then in the box that appears on the Character menu, pick Cap Height (see attachment). Usually when I convert to outlines, it is very close to the correct height in inches on the capital letters.

Came here to say this - just a quick note, you don't have to change your units to inches - you can type in 1" or 1in for instance and hit enter even if your units are set to points - Illustrator will covert to different units for you. The Cap height part is critical though. Even then, if font height is really important we tend to oversize out text slightly because some fonts are just weird.

To all the people saying they don't understand why this would even be necessary... I'm glad you've never failed an inspection with your signs? ADA signs are not the only ones that are regulated by text height.

 

[Stacey K]

It's the best when the customer has very strict rules for cash and carry. - I want these letters 1" tall. But they have it written in UC and LC. Then you ask, which part do you want 1" tall? And they just repeat themselves as if you are a small child. "One more time, I want the letters 1" tall." 15 minutes later, they actually want the letters 2" tall.

 

[Boudica]

To all the people saying they don't understand why this would even be necessary... ADA signs are not the only ones that are regulated by text height.

Exactly...
• DOT #'s need to be 2" tall
• Address numbers need to be 5" tall for a contractor to get the COO
• Boat numbers need to be 3" tall
etc etc etc

 

[Stacey K]

Came here to say this - just a quick note, you don't have to change your units to inches - you can type in 1" or 1in for instance and hit enter even if your units are set to points - Illustrator will covert to different units for you. The Cap height part is critical though. Even then, if font height is really important we tend to oversize out text slightly because some fonts are just weird.

To all the people saying they don't understand why this would even be necessary... I'm glad you've never failed an inspection with your signs? ADA signs are not the only ones that are regulated by text height.

Out of curiosity, have any Registration or DOT's ever failed an inspection because of the square digits being slightly smaller than the round digits? I'm just asking because I've done hundreds of them and nobody ever said anything...except one guy who meausured every digit and came back SCREAMING at me that the square digits were 1/16" smaller. I re-did them but never did anything for him again because he literally screamed at me.

 

[Boudica]

Out of curiosity, have any Registration or DOT's ever failed an inspection because of the square digits being slightly smaller than the round digits? I'm just asking because I've done hundreds of them and nobody ever said anything...except one guy who meausured every digit and came back SCREAMING at me that the square digits were 1/16" smaller. I re-did them but never did anything for him again because he literally screamed at me.

Not that I've ever been apprised of. They just get tagged and fined if it's not there at all.
Good you cut that guy loose. He probably screams at clouds too.

 

[myront]

This is how I usually do it in CorelDRAW:
Create a text containing nothing but an "H" and resize it to desired height in mm (value in Property Bar).
Now that you know the exact height of the uppercase H, switch to the text tool and type whatever you want,

You need the handy macro. Select your text, run the macro type in the desired height mm, cm, or in and bam!
Another alternate way is to use the smart fill tool, fill the desired letter, scale it the size you want copy the scale factor percentage, select your text and scale to the same.