Option for Properly Sizing Type in Inches/Centimeters

[B***@adobeforums.com]

I would like to see an option for sizing type in terms of inches or centimeters and have it treated differently than it is now.

Dedicated sign making packages, such as FlexiSign Pro, will allow users to set lettering in a given size, such as 2" for instance, and the height of the capital letters will really be 2". In addition, users can set line spacing values accurately in inches as well. The vertical distance between letters will be exactly as specified. Type can even be aligned properly in this manner, with the letter's capital height being the unit measured rather than the entire bounding box.

When type is set in inches within Illustrator, the type is measured according to the size of the bounding box around the letter, not the capital height of the letter itself. For example, if I type some text in Myriad and set it at 1" in height the capital letters are really only .674".

Lots of sign companies and outdoor advertising companies are migrating over to Illustrator from other desktop programs like CorelDRAW for producing some designs and client sketches. Text in large format design is not normally defined in points. Inches or centimeters is far more common.

It would also be nice if designs can be made in scale. Since Illustrator's artboard goes no larger than 227" X 227" a lot of designs must be made in scale rather than full size.

[p***@adobeforums.com]

Hey there,

I have the same problem with Illustrator text size being inaccurate. I use FlexiPro as well as Illustrator and am having trouble with the text size being accurate in Illustrator specifically.

I've noticed that not all fonts have a bounding box that goes "below" the baseline, though most fonts seem to have this problem. Is there any fix to this?

In the signage industry, we have to be very accurate and when the font is not correct, it makes for costly mistakes.

I submitted a post Sept 28, today, about the same problem. Anyone have info about correcting this?

Thanks,
Patrick

[S***@adobeforums.com]

There's nothing to correct, and Illustrator is not being inaccurate. It is sizing the type acording to centuries-old tradition. Proprietary sign-making applictions from companies like Gerber use Cap height along with proprietary fonts.

It would probably be possible to have Illustrator use Cap height to specify font size, so long as an accurate cap height was stored in the font's definition. That would be an added feature.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

I can't speak for all dedicated sign softwares. But I suspect they don't set type size by cap height. My guess is they set type by the height of the largest character in the line.

If you set the line of text "ty", for example, and then specify a height of 2" it would measure 2" from the top of the t to the bottom of the descender of the y, correct?

Neither of those positions, nor the distance between them, correspond to the cap height.

By the same token, consider this text: "NO".

As any sign designer worth his/her salt knows, the actual height of the capital O will be greater in most typefaces than the height of the capital N. So again, my guess is that even dedicated sign software would scale the text object so that the tallest character, the O, would measure 2". The N, then, wouldn't.

Sign guys, please get off your high horse when requesting this "height of glyph outlines" feature and understand: There is nothing "in error" or "inaccurate" about the way text is measured in typesetting applications.

Type designers decided many many years ago that absolute measures for type design is folly. Values for capheight, ascender, descender, x-height are arbitrary locations within the em square in which glyphs are designed. And it's not unusual for some glyphs (swash capitals in script fonts, for example) to even extend beyond the em square bounds.

Type design is based upon a relative measure system, not an absolute one. The em square is the basic height unit, but it does not necessarily correspond to any edges of any actual glyphs.

If you want to know the actual height of character paths, convert the text to paths. Okay, your dedicated sign software can reference the height of the largest of (or range of) selected outlines (or maybe just their preview) without having to first convert the text to outlines on the page. But that is obviously a feature intended for the preferences of a vertical market (sign shops). And that's fine. But it is not something "incorrect" about the way typesetting programs specify type size.

When type is set in inches within Illustrator, the type is measured according
to the size of the bounding box around the letter




No, it isn't. The type size is the measure of the font's em square. The transform palette shows the dimensions of the whole text OBJECT, which may contain leading or space before or space after, or even just unused space in the textframe.

In addition, users [of FlexiSign Pro] can set line spacing values accurately
in inches as well.




So? You can do that in Illustrator, FreeHand, InDesign, Word, or just about any other text handling program, too. The line spacing (leading) can be set in inches or centimeters instead of points if you want. But the leading is (quite properly) a measure between corresponding points on adjacent lines (like from baseline to baseline).

Using an equal measure, like a slug, between the bottoms of one row of glyphs and the tops of the next row of glyphs would be a very poor way to set type, even in sign design. For example, if line 1 has a lower-case character with a descender, line 2 has only lower case characters, none with a descender, and line 3 has one capital; well, that would be some very uneven line spacing if you constrained it to an actual same measure between the vertical extremes of the glyph outlines. The only time such a setting would be of value would be in the caes of those very boxy shaped caps-only fonts in which even round charcters like C, G, O, Q, etc., have flat tops and bottoms. And for that situation, the regular baseline-to-baseline leading measure method would work just as well.

You guys are asking for a rather vertical-market desire in a very general-market graphics software. Corel Draw includes that feature. That's fine. Yes, it might be valuable in Illustrator too. But that still doesn't mean there is anything "improper" about the typographical way of specifying type size.

You guys working in sign shops might use that feature all day every day all day long. I "grew up" in the sign trade myself; and as a result still do alot of sign design. I can still brush letter among the thick of 'em. I know what you're talking about. But I do all my sign design in mainstream drawing software like Illustrator, FreeHand, Draw, Designer, and Canvas. I've never bemoaned the absense of such a feature.

No, I don't do signs all day every day all day long. I spend most of my vector time creating illustrations and print media projects.

But really, this over-emphasis on the cap height of blocky sans fonts is something the sign trade needs to get over. A case in point:

I remember presenting an identity campaign project which involved everything from logo design to brochures, to signage for a city's convention & visitor's bureau. I will never forget the committee meeting in which I had to present the billboard design portion of the campaign.

There was one old codger in the group who just couldn't get around anything other than the question "What size are those letters?"

Even after careful, tedious, and polite explanation, he just couldn't grasp that any absolute measure I gave him would have no meaning as soon as a different typeface is used. Any skilled sign designer should know what I'm talking about. Yet it is the traditions of the sign trade itself that perpetuates such naive misconceptions about the "absolute" size of type.

JET

[A***@adobeforums.com]

I work for a sign company and I do my typesetting on Gerber Omega, which is similar to FlexiSign Pro. We base most of our measurements according to the cap height. Knowing the letter height of a particular line of words give us a point of reference so we can pretty much gauge the relationships of the different sized words in a particular sign. We also deal with architects, who are much more anal than we are when it comes to dealing with text height. We usually talk in terms of letter height when it comes to doing changes and revisions to a particular layout.

In Omega, if you type a couple of lower case letters like "no" in Helvetica Medium and specify 2" height, for example, you're setting it at what its cap height will be, not what the height of the lower case letter will be. Their actual height will be about 1-1/2". If you change "no" to "NO" then you'll get 2" high letters. The letter "N" will be exactly 2" high but the "O" will be about 2-1/8".Most curved/rounded letters like O, C, G, and S will always be slightly taller than the number they are set at. The exact height of the letter is usually based on the letters like I, E, L, and F. Script fonts like Brush script are a another matter.

I find this system so simple and easy and I know exactly what I'm getting when I spec the cap height. Illustrator's way is much more sophisticated. My working method has been to use Illustrator to do the graphics and Omega to do the typesetting and someone has mentioned to me that it is what a lot of sign graphic artists do.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Here is your new feature:

<http://www.IllustrationETC.com/AIbuds/JET_SetCapHeight.zip>

To install it:

1. Download the linked .zip archive.
2. Decompress it.
3. Open the resulting folder. It contains an Illustrator Javascript.
4. Quit Illustrator.
5. Find Illustrator's Scripts folder. The default location on Windows is:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS2\Presets\Scripts"
6. Drag the Javascript into Illustrator's Scripts folder.
7. Launch Illustrator.

To use it:

1. Text Tool: Create a text object. It can be PointType, AreaType, or PathType.
2. Text Tool: Select the characters you want to size by cap height.
3. Select the script from the File menu (File>Scripts>JET_SetCapHeight).
4. An alert tells you the current size of the first selected character. Click OK.
5. A prompt asks you to enter the desired cap height in inches. It defaults to the current cap height, expressed in inches.
6. Enter the desired cap height. Click OK.
7. The text is sized accordingly.

By default, when you create a textFrame in Illustrator, its leading value is set to auto-leading. So the leading value of the characters modified by the script will change accordingly. To prevent that, simply give the text object an absolute leading value before running the script. That way, you can size selected characters in a textFrame object without upsetting the line spacing.

Written for and tested in Illustrator CS2. Should work on both Windows and Mac. Should work with CS1. May work with AI10, but there were changes in AI's Javascript after AI10, so may not.

No warranties expressed or impied.

You're welcome. Praise, glory, fame, and (above all) huge amounts of money gratefully accepted. ;-)

JET

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Text in large format design is not normally defined in points. Inches
or centimeters is far more common.




You can set text using any of the units of measure supported by Illustrator by entering the appropriate abreviation after the value in the Font Size field of the Character Palette. For inches, enter the desired value followed by " in". For centimeters, enter " cm".

If you want to customarily spec text using inches, go to the Units & Display Performance tab of the Preferences dialog and select Inches from the Type popup menu. The choices there are Points, Inches, Millimeters, and Points.

JET

[S***@adobeforums.com]

Why not just set copy the type layer, hid the original, create outlines than set the resulting object group to the height required? If it's signs, I can't imagine you have to type in a bunch of text that redoing things if eh client requested them would be a big deal.

[S***@adobeforums.com]

There's sure been a lot of activity on this subject, and I feel the request is justified. Illustrator can read font info, which includes Cap Height. A document preference (as opposed to application preference) to use Cap Height for font size makes sense.

For now, I suggest keeping a table handy, with the font size for one inch letters in each font you plan to use. Letters in other sizes would require multiplying by the size required in inches. For example, the coefficient for Helvetica is 100.28. 2.5 inch letters would be 250.7 pt. Use the same size for an entire font family.

To get that, scale a capital E to one inch height and note the font size.

[B***@adobeforums.com]

James,

Dedicated sign making applications such as FlexiSign Pro do indeed size type based on actual capital height. You can enter in a 1" size for Helvetica and letters such as "E" and "H" will be 1". Capitals like "O" will be slightly larger. Line spacing between lines of copy can be set the same way. If you want several lines of copy with letters at 1" and 1/2" line spacing between each line the applications will let you do that with complete accuracy.

Some of the work-arounds described do not yield truly accurate results and they take more time to execute. Maintaining points conversion tables would be very cumbersome since many fonts have different measurements.

And then there's the issue of unusual looking fonts, script fonts and other letter styles where their measurements are not easy to determine. Many layouts have to be modified or changed. It is very difficult to keep a certain design "recipe" consistent if you have to manually scale elements. Accuracy and consistency goes out the window.

Illustrator's own method of sizing type in inches and centimeters does not give you something like a true 1" tall capital letter even when you set the unit measurements to inches in the preferences box.

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Setting your line spacing or leading is also very simple with these sign making applications. For example, if the top line of text is 1" tall and the bottom line is also 1" tall and you need a 1/2" space between lines you just set the leading at 1-1/2" (the 1/2" for the space + 1" for the height of letters on the second line, because the leading is measured from the baseline of the top letters to the baseline of the second letters.)

Mr. Henderson makes some very good points in his last post.

[Teri Pettit]

A document preference (as opposed to application preference) to use Cap
Height for font size makes sense.




I think I would prefer it to be an option at the level of the type object. For the vast majority of documents, where all the text is normal body copy, I prefer the traditional typesetting measures. But in headlines, labels, buttons, etc., it would sometimes be nice to be able to experiment with different fonts and have the software pick the size of each typeface that would best fit in the space that needs to be filled.

Since each document has its own default Character Style, if someone wants that kind of scaling by default, they could change the default Character Style in either their startup documents or a template file.

[L***@adobeforums.com]

There is now the script that JET has written available in the
Illustrator_Win FAQs Forum

[K***@adobeforums.com]

And a similar one by Wolfgang that has been availble for two years.

<http://illustrator.hilfdirselbst.ch/dokuwiki/english/scripts/javascript/wr-capitalsize>

Sorry, James, I couldn't resist. Just a piece of competition. Please don't get it wrong, I'm sure your script is the better one ;-)

[J***@adobeforums.com]

To get that, scale a capital E to one inch height and note the font size.




Use a capital M. Some terminal serifs of horizontal strokes extend above the capheight.

And then there's the issue of unusual looking fonts, script fonts and
other letter styles where their measurements are not easy to determine.




I know that. That's my point. It's why typefaces are sized the way they are.

Illustrator's own method of sizing type in inches and centimeters does
not give you something like a true 1" tall capital letter even when you
set the unit measurements to inches in the preferences box.




I didn't say it did. You said you wanted to use centimeters or inches instead of points. You can do that. No, that doesn't change the measure to reflect the capheight. That's what this thread is all about. That's why the script I provided.

Illustrator can read font info, which includes Cap Height.




And if you open some fonts in a font editor, you'll find that the tops of capital glyphs don't always fall on the capheight line. Look no farther than Myriad. Compare the heights of lining numerals with that of capitals. If the desire is for the measure specified to actually coincide with the height of a glyph, the software probably needs to access and measure an actual outline of a particular glyph and then scale non-fitting characters of that font by the same ratio. (That's what my script effectively does. It actually sets a temporary textframe containing a capital M of the same font and size of the first character of the selected textrange. It then converts it to paths, gets the actual measure of the outline, and uses that to derive a scale factor, which it then applies to the desired type size the user enters in the prompt.)

But again, Bobby, you keep using words like "inaccurate" to describe the way type is sized. There is nothing inaccurate about it. It's industry standard for typesetting. It accurately uses the font's em square. You want it to use something else (cap height). But there is nothing more "accurate" about using cap height than using em square.

JET

[B***@adobeforums.com]

Sizing by the Em square and using points as the unit of measurement is the standard for print. It is not the standard for other disciplines like large format advertising and sign making. In the United States, they go by inches and feet. In Europe, signmakers and billboard designers prefer the metric system.

As for which character is used for manually scaling type, be it a "E," "M," "H," "I," "X" or whatever, it varies from typeface to typeface. I can find exceptions where any of those characters will have features extending above the cap height line or below the baseline.

Sign making applications are at least consistent in using a typeface's distance between baseline and cap height line to specify letter height. Type can be sized and positioned consistently off of those reference points and make it easier to keep the look of signage and billboard programs consistent even when the project involves multiple designers and companies.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

I can find exceptions where any of those characters will have features
extending above the cap height line or below the baseline.




That's right. So if you use the "baseline to cap height, how is that "more accurate" than using the em square?

Bobby, did you even try either of the two scripts mentioned?

JET

[B***@adobeforums.com]

Bump. Been away for awhile. Busy.

I tried the script. It works, at least in a basic way.

As to which is more accurate, that's really not the issue. Neither system is "better" than the other.

What we're talking about is conventions being used between different industries of graphic design. The conventions used for print don't work well for large format design.

I think the folks at Adobe probably have access to programs like Flexi, Gerber Omega and a number of other industry specific design programs to see what I'm talking about on specifying type in that method. I think they can get ahead of Corel by building in an option to emulate it, because CorelDRAW doesn't do what I'm talking about at all either.

Over the years, I think Corel has sort of coasted on the lead it had in the Windows-dominated outdoor design market. A lot of people in that industry have been migrating over to Adobe products, in part over the strength of Photoshop as a design tool for giant format printing. With a couple minor changes here and there, Illustrator will be more interoperable with those industry specific applications and front end for large format design.