character’s design. As a result, two different sentences
that contain the same number of characters will occupy
the same width if printed using a monospaced font, but
will usually have different widths if a proportionally-
spaced font is used.
An example sentence in Courier.
Identical number of characters.
An example sentence in Bookman.
Identical number of characters.
Pitch
The pitch of a monospaced font is the number of charac-
ters printed per inch. Proportionally-spaced fonts do not
have a consistent pitch value, since different characters
have different widths.
Weight
Font weight is the thickness of the lines which make up
the font’s characters. The standard weight is known as
medium. Bold fonts, with thicker lines, are commonly
used. Bold text is often used for emphasis or for head-
ings. Light stroke weight fonts have lines that are nar-
rower than the standard weight. Some examples of
different stroke weights are shown below.
Light
Medium
Bold
Black
Bitmap fonts
Each character in a bitmap font is defined as a matrix of
dots that the printer prints on the page. As a result, bit-
map fonts are available in particular point sizes only.
For example, the printer’s built-in fonts are all bit-
mapped, and may only be printed out at certain fixed
sizes.
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