Beautiful Web Typography

Simon Pascal Klein

tips on de-sucking the web

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Introduction

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I’m Pascal Klein

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I...

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I...• work for a small web-dev company based in

Canberra and also operate on a free-lance basis;

Web Typography 3

I...• work for a small web-dev company based in

Canberra and also operate on a free-lance basis;

• try to use, and support Open Source soware;

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I...• work for a small web-dev company based in

Canberra and also operate on a free-lance basis;

• try to use, and support Open Source soware;

• write about typography and whatever else strikes me at the time on klepas.org.

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Web Typography 4

What is typography?

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What is typography?ty•pog•ra•phy |tīˈpägrəfē| •n

Typography is the art of creating and setting type with the purpose of honoring the text it sets.

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serif sans-serif

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e difference

serif sans-serif

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e Intertubes today

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e Intertubes todayLots of information.

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e Intertubes todayLots of information.

Information Architecture deals with this primarily but there is another:

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e Intertubes todayLots of information.

Information Architecture deals with this primarily but there is another:

Typography.

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Typography exists to bring order to information by dividing and organizing – aiding readers in finding what they are looking for.

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– Jeff Cro

“Typography is not picking a ‘cool’ font.”

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tips to de-suck the web

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. Starting out: resetAll the browsers have their own default styling for various (X)HTML elements. is makes it a pain for cross-browser consistency.

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. Starting out: resetAll the browsers have their own default styling for various (X)HTML elements. is makes it a pain for cross-browser consistency.

Fix? Simply reset everything.

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body,div,dl,dt,dd,ul,ol,li,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,pre,form,fieldset,input,textarea,p,blockquote,th,td {margin:0;padding:0;}table {border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}fieldset,img {border:0;}address,caption,cite,code,dfn,em,strong,th,var {font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;}ol,ul {list-style:none;}caption,th {text-align:left;}h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {font-size:100%;font-weight:normal;}q:before,q:after {content:'';}abbr,acronym {border:0;}

Googling “CSS reset stylesheets” should land you with numerous examples. is one above is from the Yahoo! UI library.

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. Font sizingFont sizing is done using font-size. It uses any of the CSS numerical measurements and is either done in absolute or relative terms.

Sizing in pixels is absolute whilst sizing in ems or percentages are an example of relative terms.

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. Use ems

An em is a relative unit best to be thought of as a box. It is relative to the point size of a specific font (i.e. em in a point typeface is point).

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. Use ems

An em is a relative unit best to be thought of as a box. It is relative to the point size of a specific font (i.e. em in a point typeface is point).

To calculate, find what one pixel is in ems and then multiply by the desired font size (in pixels):

1 ÷ parent font-size × required pixel value= em value

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. Use ems

An em is a relative unit best to be thought of as a box. It is relative to the point size of a specific font (i.e. em in a point typeface is point).

To calculate, find what one pixel is in ems and then multiply by the desired font size (in pixels):

1 ÷ parent font-size × required pixel value= em value

Note this means sizing in ems can easily have you using values with three decimal places.

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.. e . trickRelative font sizes are either relative to the browser default font size (commonly pixels) or their parent element. Consider:p { font-size: 80%; }blockquote { font-size: 80%; }

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.. e . trick

80% of 16px is 12.8px, so p and blockquote elements will be that size, but what happens when we put a p element inside a blockquote element? e parent (blockquote) is 12.8px so the p will be rendered at 80% of that – 10.42px.

Relative font sizes are either relative to the browser default font size (commonly pixels) or their parent element. Consider:p { font-size: 80%; }blockquote { font-size: 80%; }

Web Typography

In 2004 Richard Rutter wrote an article outlining a trick used to make these calculations simpler: because browsers have a common default font size of 16px we can set the body font size to be 62.5%, resetting the default value to 10px.

From here on, using ems is much easier: px in ems is .em, px is .em. Remember this only holds up for direct child elements of the body; nested elements will be relative to their parents.

.. e . trick (cont’d)

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.. Differences in browser rounding

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.. Differences in browser roundingMake sure your actual font size in absolute terms is either an integer or half-way in between (i.e. 13px, 13.5px or 14px).

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.. Differences in browser roundingMake sure your actual font size in absolute terms is either an integer or half-way in between (i.e. 13px, 13.5px or 14px).

To find an element’s font size in absolute terms (i.e. pixels) you can use the Firefox Web Develop Extension, Information → Display Element Information.

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. Stick it to a scaleUse a scale when setting type. Find what suits you best for a given project and stick to it.

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72.the “classic scale”

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 24, 36, 48, 64, 72, 96.another scale

8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89.scale based on the Fibonacci sequence

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. Use Smartypants or similarSmartypants is a script that translates plain ASCII punctuation characters into “smart” typographic punctuation HTML entities.

• Smartypants (PHP, PERL, & Movable Type);

• Typogrify (Python/Django);

• wp-typogrify (WordPress);

• …?

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. Quotation marks & apostrophes

‘ ’ “ ”’

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' "

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1'61"

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"is is a group of words surrounded by a bunch of tick marks."

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“is is a quotation!”- Jeff Cro

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. Dashes

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- hyphen Mary-Anne, Dominique Strauss-Kahn

– en dash April–May, ages –, pp. –

— em dash Phrase marker—not spaced—like this.*

– minus 5–4=1

. Dashes

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Traditionally punctuation marks, bullets, lists, hyphens, and brackets all hang in the margin.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer a odio. Vivamus placerat felis id risus. Cras mollis est. Suspendisse molestie imperdiet libero. Etiam mollis libero vulputate lorem. Nullam ut leo. Etiam at turpis non massa rhoncus sodales.)”

“

(

. Advanced: hanging punctuation

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Easily done with lists by just setting their margins to zero.

. Advanced: hanging punctuation (cont’d)

Possible for opening punctuation marks using

background-image or a negative text-indent. CSS3 will hopefully support hanging punctuation with the proposed hanging-punctuation property.[http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#hanging-punctuation]

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. Select a good measure

e measure is the length of a single line. It is important to select a good measure for running text. Do this with the width property.

Ideally these should be relative to the font size, such that the type scales proportionately to the measure; use ems or percentages.

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. Select a good measure (cond’t)

An apt measure for running text ranges from about - characters for serif type set in a single column on a page (print).

On the web, type generally benefits from a smaller measure. When using multi-column you’ll need to go even smaller.

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. Select a good measure (cond’t)

An apt measure for running text ranges from about - characters for serif type set in a single column on a page (print).

Characters average at around two thirds of an em, so a width of to ems matches the above.

On the web, type generally benefits from a smaller measure. When using multi-column you’ll need to go even smaller.

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. Treat text as part of the UI

Distinguish content elements from application controls (i.e. a user’s username and description from a logout link or text-field title).

Oen done with colour (i.e. setting controls gray), size (making them smaller) and typefaces.

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. Use gridsGrids bring order to your page and help specify where things should go and their flow.

Remember to put in apt “gutters” (margins between columns) to separate your columns particularly when neighbouring columns hold running text.

Ruler guides help enormously – use the Web Developer extension for Firefox or ruler background images. Also see the YUI library.

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. e little things

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. e little things• Setting the body in a serif and headings in a san

serif or visa-versa work to great effect;

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. e little things• Setting the body in a serif and headings in a san

serif or visa-versa work to great effect;

• Set abbr and acronym elements in small caps (using the font-variant property);

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. e little things• Setting the body in a serif and headings in a san

serif or visa-versa work to great effect;

• For headings use the most stylish ampersand available (Typogrify wraps them with .amp);

• Set abbr and acronym elements in small caps (using the font-variant property);

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. e little things• Setting the body in a serif and headings in a san

serif or visa-versa work to great effect;

• For headings use the most stylish ampersand available (Typogrify wraps them with .amp);

• At small font sizes text-decoration: underline; can render descender characters (g, j, p, q, y) difficult to read – use border-bottom: 1px solid;;

• Set abbr and acronym elements in small caps (using the font-variant property);

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. e little things (cond’t)

• Don’t forget to set an ample leading (line height) for running text! Done using the line-height property and you can use a unit-less number (i.e. . which acts as a multiplier of the font size (em if you’re font sizing in ems);

e leading spans from the baseline (don’t worry

about descenders or ascenders.

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. e little things (cond’t)

• Don’t be afraid to mark new paragraphs with indents, outdents, a plain white-line, a pilcrow (¶) or other ornament, drop cap and/or headers;

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. e little things (cond’t)

• Don’t be afraid to mark new paragraphs with indents, outdents, a plain white-line, a pilcrow (¶) or other ornament, drop cap and/or headers;

• Generally use flush-le (text-align: left;) for running text, particularly when set in a narrow measure – justification can work at ample measures and better with serif typefaces.

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. e little things (cond’t)

• Don’t be afraid to mark new paragraphs with indents, outdents, a plain white-line, a pilcrow (¶) or other ornament, drop cap and/or headers;

• Generally use flush-le (text-align: left;) for running text, particularly when set in a narrow measure – justification can work at ample measures and better with serif typefaces.

• High-contrasting link colours in running text distract: use the smallest effective difference;

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. I lied – one more

Web Typography 34

. I lied – one morePlease don’t use Comic Sans unless you have a very, very good reason.

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Free desktop specificStick fonts into ~/.fonts

To reload your font cache:fc-cache -fv

Generally use a serif for printed type; make sure you grab a copy of the Liberation font package from Redhat![https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/]

ISBN: ---

Web Typography KLEPAS@KLEPAS.ORG

Other reading & references• http://webtypography.net

• http://alistapart.com/topics/design/typography

• http://ilovetypography.com

• http://usabletype.org

Ta.

Web Typography KLEPAS@KLEPAS.ORG

Inspirational type nuts• http://cameronmoll.com

• http://jeffcro.com

• http://markboulton.co.uk

• http://zeldman.com