SafeAudio A copy protection system developed by Macrovision for CD data intended for audio. The system works by adding small errors to RedBook (non-computer CD format) CD's, which prevent computer CD drives (which natively read YellowBook and OrangeBook data and graphics CD's) from reading RedBook CD's. The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a crime to crack a copy-protected CD.
Samba A Linux widget which permits use of file and print services exactly as they are used on WindowsNT for version 2.0.x or above; and it is faster than WindowsNT. It does this by employing Windows SMB (Server Message Block) protocall. The usefulness of this is in the case where both Linux and WindowsNT are both resident on a workstation, and Linux can access files normally accessible only to WindowsNT. Samba was developed by The Samba Group.
SAMI An acronym for Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange. A technology developed by Microsoft in 1998 for adding closed captioning capability to animation, audio, or video source files, by time-synchronizing a SAMI file to a media file. A SAMI-savvy Media Player must be used. For Web use, the browser must download both a media file and a SAMI file, and then envoke the proper media player.
SAML An acronym for Security Assertion Markup Language. A markup language and standard developed by the Organization for the Advancement of Stuructured Information Standards to enable a single secure sign-on procedure for security-sensitive Web access. It is based on XML.
SAN An acronym for Storage Area Networks.
sandbox model A software environment where a software program is almost totally isolated from the system environment so as to limit the system resources which can be used. The security model for Java is an example of a sandbox model.
San Francisco Project A massive project quietly being undertaken by IBM to develop a set of business object-oriented frameworks written in Java during 1995-1997 in conjuction with more than 200 developer organizations. It is the largest single Java development program in the world.
The first products to come out of this effort are the San Francisco Foundation and Utilities and the San Francisco Common Business Objects. They make up the first of a series of service utilities to be provided in the Core Business Products toolkit. The toolkit is already available for Windows NT and AIX operating systems, and will be available later for other versions of Unix.
Sans Serif or sans serif or sans-serif A typeface design not having serifs. It is also known as « Lineale. »
Sans serif originated in the 19th century, but only became popularized in the 20th century. Most sans serif typeface designs are based on even-width, rather than Old Style proportions. This is the case because Old Style proportions tends to disappear as widths are significantly condensed or expanded. Condensed typeface designs became popular in the 20th century due to the economic necessity of squeezing the maximum number of words into the smallest area on a page as in newspapers and phone books. However, sans serif designs are generally not as readable without fatigue as serif designs. That is why they are not generally used as body copy in books.
An example of sans serif even-width proportions can be seen in the letterforms below:
A E N O S X.
The following categories and sub-categories are defined:
Gothic - A style based on calligraphic medieval script but without the tips or serifs. It was named by Renaissance scholars (who disliked script) for the Goths barbarians, so as to be contemptuous:
:Grotesque - Some contrast between thick and thin strokes; squareish curved strokes with closely set jaws; curled leg in 'R' and spur in 'G'; horizontal ends of curved strokes. Typeface examples include: Headline Bold.
:Neo-grotesque - Less contrast and more regular than Grotesque; more open jaws; open tailed 'g'; oblique ends of curved strokes. Typeface examples include: Arial, Bell Gothic, Franklin Gothic, Gothic Medium BBB, Helvetica, Univers.
:Typewriter - Originally designed as typewriter typefaces or simulating the look of a typewriter typeface. Typeface examples include: Classified News, Letter Gothic.
Humanist - Based on Old Style proportions rather than even-width proportions.
:Classical - Subtle contrast; upper case letterforms with inscriptional proportions; two-story 'a' and 'g'. Typeface examples include: ITC Kabel, Optima, Syntax.
:Non-Classical - Wider contrast, upper case letterforms may not have inscriptional proportions. Typeface examples include: Britannic and Radiant.
:Typewriter - Originally designed as typewriter typefaces or simulating the look of a typewriter typeface. A typeface example is Artisan.
Stress Variation - Typefaces having a variation in stroke and stem thicknesses
:Broad Pen - Typeface design simulates letterforms drawn with the use of a broad pen. Typeface examples include: Auriol, Codex, Lydian.
:Casual - No inscriptional proportions or consistent contrast, but informal. Typeface examples include: Ad Lib, Newland, Othello, Pioneer.
:Typewriter - Originally designed as typewriter typefaces or simulating the look of a typewriter typeface.
Geometric - Based on simple geometric shapes such as circle, square, trapezoid; uniform width strokes; single story 'a'.
:Round with Straight Stem Ends - Straight stem ends; ascenders sometimes longer than descenders; usually monoline. Typeface examples include: ITC Avant Garde Gothic, Granby, Futura.
:Round with Rounded Stem Ends - Rounded stem ends; ascenders sometimes longer than descenders; usually monoline. Typeface examples include: Frankfurter Medium, Seurat Medium, VAG Rounded.
:Super-elliptical - Super-elliptical shapes replacing round shapes in letterforms; sometimes monoline. Typeface examples include: Eurostile, Futura Display, Information Black Extended, Inga, Microgramma.
:Stylized - Monoline; ascenders, descenders, and stems may exhibit curvature. Typeface examples include: Handel Gothic, Hobo, Magic, Motter Tektura, Pump, Roberta, Revue, ITC Ronda.
:Typewriter - Originally designed as typewriter typefaces or simulating the look of a typewriter typeface.
Computer - Having the characteristics of simulating computer-generated output, such as printout, ocr, and illuminated displays.
:OCR - Optical character recognition designs which are machine-readable or look similar to those designs. Typeface examples include: Amelia, Data 70, OCR-A, OCR-B, Orbit B.
:Digital - Comprised of segmented strokes simulating the appearance of liquid crystal or fluorescent gas tube displays. Typeface examples include Digital and LCD.
Free Form - Characterized by free-form shapes.
:Solid - Solid strokes; based on or influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. Typeface examples include: Elefanta, Komet, Sigfried, Washington.
:Outline - Outlined; based on or influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. Typeface examples include: Epitaph Open, Erratic Outline, Virile Open.
:Miscellaneous - Sans serif typeface not fitting into the previous categories.
schema See XML schema language.
Schwabacher A rounded version of textura.
SCITEX file An image file format used for images sent between Scitex systems and desktop or electronic publishing applications.
.SCN file A Macintosh screen font file. These files also contain metrics data.
screen font A font file containing bit-map images at one or more type sizes of every character in a outline printer font. It is used by page layout applications to produce a visual image of type on a computer monitor screen, for the display of the publication page being composed.
script Another term for a generalized alphabet, alphabet system, phonetic element set, or syllabary (e.g. Cyrillic, Greek, hangul, hiragana, etc.), as opposed to a specific alphabet (e.g. Macedonian [Cyrillic], Chuang [Latin-Cyrillic], Vietnamese [Latin], Phrygian [Greek]).
More generally, a script can be considered to be a set of rules for writing a group of languages. Scripts may be written or non-written, and can be subdivided into types:
logographic - A script which uses symbols or ideographs to represent a word or morpheme. (examples: Chinese, Egyptian Hieroglyphic, Japanese)
taxonomic - A script which characterizes visual spatial relationships/taxemes or motions of parts of the human body. (examples: Stokoe Notation)
alphabetic - A script which uses alphabet letterforms or phonemes to spell/form words or morphemes. (examples: Arabic, bopomofo, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Indic, katakana, Shavian)
featural - A script which uses features to form or indicate words or morphemes. (examples: hangul, Pitman shorthand, Sutton Sign Writing)
Some scripts have characteristics which may fall into more than one of the above types. Each component which characterizes the types above (symbol or ideograph/morpheme, motion articulator/taxeme, letterform/phoneme, element) is increasingly more specific than the one in the list above it.
See also complex script and simple script.
The following table lists scripts based on the number of world speakers:
Script No. of Speakers Representative languages and language groups
Latin 1 353 000 000 African#, Altaic#, Baltic#, Celtic#, Germanic#, Latin, Native American#, Oceanic#, Pinyin, Romance#, Slavic#, Turkish, Uralic#, Vietnamese
Chinese 970 000 000 Cantonese, Mandarin
Devanagari 381 000 000 Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit
Cyrillic 280 000 000 Avar, Belorussian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Kabardian, Macedonian, Moldavian, Ossetian, Russian, Serbian, Ukranian
Arabic 273 000 000 Arabic, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Pahlavi, Pashto, Persian, Sindhi, Uigur, Urdu
Bengali 180 000 000 Assamese, Bengali
Japanese* 120 000 000 Japanese
Gurumukhi 75 000 000 Lahnda, Punjabi
hangul** 68 000 000 Korean
Telugu 64 000 000 Kanarese, Telugu
Tamil 62 000 000 Tamil
Javanese 50 000 000 Javanese
Thai 47 000 000 Thai
Gujarati 40 000 000 Gujarati
Malayalam 35 000 000 Malayalam
Kannada 35 000 000 Kanarese
Myanmar 34 000 000 Myanmar (Burmese)
Oriya 30 000 000 Oriya
hybrid*** 12 000 000 Azerbaijani, Burushaski, Bushman, Chuang, Delaware, Hausa, Kano, Mende, Twi
Sinhala 12 000 000 Sinhalese
Greek 11 000 000 Greek, Phrygian
Ethiopic 10 000 000 Amharic
Armenian 6 000 000 Armenian
Coptic 6 000 000 Aramaic, Coptic
Khmer 6 000 000 Khmer
Yi 5 000 000 Yi
Mongolian 4 000 000 Mongolian
Georgian 3 000 000 Georgian
Hebrew 3 000 000 Hebrew, Ladino
Lao 3 000 000 Lao
Buginese 2 000 000 Buginese
Batak 1 000 000 Batak
Tibetan 1 000 000 Tibetan
UCAS 1 000 000 Cree
Cherokee 10 000 Cherokee
Klingon 1 000 Klingon
# - language group
* - includes hiragana and katakana scripts
** - includes Jamo script
*** - mix of Cyrillic, Latin, or Greek letters
The classification of languages as to script can be somewhat confusing. For example, most of the Romance languages (Catalan, French, Italian, Portugese, Rumanian, Provençal, Spanish) are written using the Latin script, but one (Moldavian) is written using the Cyrillic script. Some identical languages (Croatian and Serbian) are written in different scripts (Latin and Cyrillic, respectively); while the same script may be used to write different languages, some of which can also be represented in their native script (Latin script for Germanic and Romance languages, Japanese (Romaji), Pinyin Chinese, and Urdu). Some languages use a hybrid alphabet of Cyrillic, Latin, or Greek letters. Unified kanji ( « Han unification » ) are used in several different scripts (Chinese, Japanese, hangul, old Vietnamese) and used to write several different languages (Cantonese and Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Tiwanese, Vietnamese).
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script A typeface style with flowing lines, sometimes with characters that look connected, suggesting handwriting.
Typographically speaking, the distinction between calligraphic and script typefaces is that calligraphic typefaces have unconnected letterforms or letterforms which look like they were intended to be unconnected; whereas script typefaces are designed with letterforms that look connected or with a suggestion that they were meant to be. Some differences in basic letterform designs between the two are also typical. Scripts can be divided into two major categories. Each category is divided into sub-categories.
Joined - Connected letterforms (or « flowing » ). The following sub-categories have been defined:
:Formal - Extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes. Typeface examples include: Bank Script, Commercial Script, Künstler Script, Tms Cursive, Yale Script.
:Informal - Letterforms patterned after rapid handwriting. Typeface examples include: Jiffy, Mistral, Noris Script.
:Monotone - A typeface example is Kaufmann.
:Brush - Strokes in letterforms have the appearance of brush strokes. A typeface example is Brush Script.
Unjoined - Unconnected letterforms (or « non-flowing » ) The following sub-categories have been defined:
:Formal - Extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes. Typeface examples include: Boulevard, ITC Boutros Rokaa, Coronet, Dorchester Script, Park Avenue, and Stradivarius.
:Informal - Letterforms simulate the appearance of rapid handwriting. Typeface examples include: Maxim, Pepita and Reporter No.2.
:Monotone - Typeface examples include ITC Latif Medium and Gilles.
:Brush - Strokes in letterforms have the appearance of brush strokes. Typeface examples include: Cascade, Champion, Derby, Dom, Fox, Maxim.
:Cursive - Letterforms simulate the appearance of handwriting. Typeface examples include: Caprice, Murray Hill, Times Script, Trafton Script.
:Calligraphic - Style remeniscent of being written with a brush or broad pen and producing unconnected letterforms. Typeface examples include: ITC Boutros Calligraphy Medium, Legend, LeGriffe, Lydian Script, Medici, Poetica, Thompson Quillscript, ITC Zapf Chancery Medium Italic.
:Ronde - Patterned after French manuscript writing. Typeface examples include: Boutique and Delphin No. 1 (lower case).
Soft Brush (Japanese) - Strokes in ideographs have the appearance of brush strokes, with edges slightly rounded, so as to simulate being drawn with a wet brush
:Kaisho - All strokes with slightly rounded edges; varying stroke thicknesses; varying width glyph. A typeface example is Shinsei Kaisho CBSK1.
:Kyokasho - Less elaborate Kaisho designs; square (width=height) glyph areas; mimum variation of glyph widths. A typeface example is Shin Futo Kyokasho.
:Gyosho - Some strokes, normally distinct and separated, are smoothly connected. A typeface example is Iwakage Futo Gyosho.
:Sosho - Most strokes, normally distinct and separated, are smoothly connected. A typeface example is Iwakage Futo Sosho.
:Miscellaneous - Sub-category for typefaces not classifiable in the sub-categories above. A typeface example is Tan Koin.
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script A personal or specific style of forming letters or figures in the handwriting process.
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script A data file having a list of commands written in a « scripting language » (a type of computer language) for later execution.
scripting language A computer language which is designed to process text or process a sequence of operating system or application tasks. Scripting language text, comprised of individual commands, is placed in a script file, the contents of which are then executed at a later time by the operating system or application. Scripting language syntax or lexical form is not standardized. However, humans can often recognize what the individual scripting language commands are doing.
The ability to use a scripting language requires a separate interpreter for that language, which may be available on different platforms. Some commonly-used scripting languages are JavaScript, Perl, REXX, Tcl, and Visual Basic (VBScript). Some operating systems also have scripting capability built in (such as AppleScript of Macintosh System 7, MS-DOS, IBM MVS, and Unix); but this capability is not a separate scripting language, but just part of the operating system.
scriptkiddy An end user who: hacks into a Website; furloins the work of others for personal gain; or overstatingly misrepresents his or her skill level.
scriptlet A small application or utility written in JavaScript or other script programming languages callable from HTML or XML.
ScriptProof See ScriptWorks Edition RIP.
ScriptWorks Edition RIP A clone PostScript RIP from Harlequin.
SCSI An acronym for Small Computer System Interface. A data-transfer interface protocall used mainly between a microcomputer processor and a disk.
SDSL An abbreviation for Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A variety of DSL using only one pair of twisted cables or lines instead of two.
.SEA file An An acronym for Self Extracting Archive. A file that includes decompressing software to enable it to decompress itself.
search engine A software utility which finds Web sites containing specific information, in response to keywords which are submitted to the search engine by an end-user.
Secondary Multilingual Plane The old name for Supplementary Multilingual Plane.
Section 508
A section of the United States Americans for Disability Act which sets forth standards and guidelines in many areas of administration, communication, facilities construction and design, and health and safety. The Access-Board is the U.S. federal agency which developes standards for architecture, communication, and construction to carry out the provisions. The standards under communications include guidelines for Internet software Web accessibility. See accesssible Web pages andand Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines.
This Encyclopædia of Typography and Electronic Communication has been fully compliant with these standards since its inception.
sector kerning A method of calculating pair kerning data by using data tabulating the distance of a glyph shape from a vertical reference line, at various heights (or averaged over vertical bands), on both sides horizontally of the glyph. An automatic kerning program, Kernus, developed by URW was based on this method.
Secure Electronic Transaction A security and encryption technology which secures the communication of sensitive electronic commerce information over the Internet and Intranets, such as passwords, social security numbers, account numbers, and credit card data. SET performs verification of sender and receiver data, unlike SSL.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) An encryption technology which secures the communication of sensitive electronic commerce information over the Internet (between a browser and a server) and Intranets, such as passwords, social security numbers, account numbers, and credit card data. SSL does not perform verification of sender or receiver data.
security spoof A security flaw introduced by a character spoof being treated the same as a native fundamental character.
Semitic scripts The scripts which are used by a group of Afro-southwest Asian languages. The Semitic languages are part of a larger language group called Hamito-Semitic. The Semitic scripts include Akkadian (dead), Amharic, Amorite (dead), Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Geez (dead), Gurage, Harari, Hebrew, Maltese, Manchu, Mandaean (dead), Moabite (dead), Mongolian, Palmyrene (dead), Phoenician (dead), Sogdian (dead), Syriac-Nestoric (dead), Tifinagh, Tigrinya, Tigre, and Ugaritic (dead). These scripts are divided into three script classifications: cuniform, North Semitic, and South Semitic.
serif A short stroke of varying design, shape, and thickness attached to the ends of character stems.
server appliance A packaged combination of (hardware) server(s) and specific network software, which includes file server and Internet software.
service bureau A service organization whose major business function is producing high resolution final output of a publication from a data file supplied by a customer. Service bureaus increasingly do other work such as scanning, data format conversion, color separation, electronic publishing software sales, systems design, and even graphic design.
servicename The name of the World Wide Web resource which is being invoked.
servlet A term used to designate a server-side application, component, or utility, written in Java, which can take the place of CGI and other scripting languages in servicing and producing Web content.
Servelets have several advantages over competing architecture:
(1) Java performs faster than CGI or other scripting methods, because servlets are pre-compiled and a servlet is loaded only at the first instance of being used. In contrast, a script must be incrementally interpreted for each instance that it is envoked. This manifests as a quicker response to a query or task within a Web site.
(2) Java is a platform-independent language. Any server system supporting Java can run a specific properly designed servelet. Therefore, servlet components developed for, say, a Web site, can be run on a variety of servers running different operating systems. If more than one type of server is used, the same servlet can run on all of them.
(3) Since Java is a complete software development language, it has more capability than scripting languages. For example, Java has access to network services, filesystems, and security controls.
SET See Secure Electronic Transaction.
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set See advance width.
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set The average width of lowercase letterforms (a through z) in a typeface or font.
set solid Text set without any leading.
set width The same as character width.
sfnt A font resource template, first used on Macintosh operating systems, now also used within font resource formats on the PC.
SGI Abbreviation for Silicon Graphics Incorporated.
.SGI file See bitmap formats.
SGML An abbreviation for Standard General Markup Language. A markup meta-language originally developed by the U.S. Government to code and format documents easily by allowing the definition of a document structure. The advantages are that the document files are ASCII plain text (and human-readable), and can be opened on almost any platform (even MS-DOS) with basic word processors. The disadvantages include:the some lack of formatting flexibility and the lack of very good typesetting capability, even if cascading stylesheets are envoked.
Currently, SGML serves more widely as a markup meta-language than as a document-structuring language.
shift level An escape key stroke (using the 'Shift' key) used to trigger an action.
shoulder A curved stroke connected to a generally horizontal stroke on one side and a generally vertical stroke on the other. Examples found in m, n.
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shoulder The support metal in a body upon which the letterform die is placed.
showing The display of letterforms of a typeface for appraisal purposes.
.SHG file A bitmap data format which can include a hotspot overlay.
SHTML A hybrid of HTML which includes embedded servlet code which is envoked by Server Side Includes (SSI) protocall callable using <SERVLET> tags. Files with SHTML have the extension of .SHTML, .SHT, or .SHL .
side heading A heading running down the page positioned off to the left (justified right) or right (justified left) from a body of text.
sidebar A narrow column of text, boxed off from the main text of a page usually placed close to one side.
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sidebar A thick vertical line usually placed on the right side of a page, but sometimes placed on the left.
side bearing or sidebearing A horizontal space between a character part extremity and its origin (on the left) or its width (on the right).
signature Some symbol, numeral, or letterform placed on the first page of each section of a document as a mechanical assembly aid.
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signature A classification number given to a group of related character glyphs in the AFII Glyph Register.
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signature Another name for byte order mark.
signature printing A printing of a magazine or book in which more than one page is combined on a single plate and printed on a single paper sheet on both sides. The page images must be placed so that the page sides are printed correctly and the sheet can be cut up and the page sets folded.
Silicon Graphics Incorporated A company which has developed RISC-based workstations running Irix (a form of Unix), frequently used by the movie industry for computer simulations ( « Jurassic Park, » revised « Star Wars » trilogy, « Titanic » (1997 version) ), movie editing, and animations. In 1996, Silicon Graphics bought Cray Research, the builder of the fastest mainframe supercomputer (CRAY-2), widely used for animation and movie simulations, nuclear radiation transport analysis, and other intensive deterministic and stochastic numerical computations.
similar to In terms of comparing typefaces, it means that one typeface can be used as a direct replacement for the other typeface, because the designs are similar, but rarely identical upon close examination. It does not mean that character glyph widths of letterforms are the same (which would eliminate documents from having to be being reformatted in the typeface replacement process).
simple script A script which does not require special processing (other than a dedicated change in writing direction) relative to plain text. Examples include Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.
single byte character set A character set comprised of single-byte characters and accessible by a single-byte encoding.
single master font Adobe Systems nomenclature for a standard Type 1 PostScript font.
SIP An acronym for Supplementary Ideographic Plane.
16-bit clean Text which can contain any characters represented by the numbers 0 to 65,535, but only characters in that range.
16-bit dirty Text which contains any 15-bit character, but only specific 16-bit characters.
sixteen sheet A paper size of 120 inches by 80 inches (3050 mm by 2030 mm).
size of type See pointsize.
size sensitivity See optical scaling.
skew See typeface angle.
slab serif See square serif.
slanted Same as oblique, but applied usually to fixed pitch typefaces.
slug A line or a portion of a line of type, cast in a single piece, as from a Linotype machine. The slug may have different typefaces and sizes intermixed in that line.
small cap or smallcap Same meaning as « small capital. » A capital letter which is usually sized so that the cap height equals the x-height or a slight bit higher. However, this cannot be achieved by simply using a smaller point size, because the stroke thicknesses of a small cap should be the same as that of a capital.
Note that some Latin script IPA phonetic and Cyrillic script letterforms follow a somewhat similar smallcap form, but they are not true smallcaps because they are actually lowercase letterforms and have lowercase letterform stroke thicknesses (usually thinner). Some examples of these can be found at <0262>, <0299>, <029c>, <0432>, and <043d>.
smart tag A link which is placed in a document automatically when a document is opened. Previously, such links were used to extend the capabilities of an application, primarily in the area of user support. But more recently, Microsoft embedded smart tags in displayed web pages, opened or generated by Microsoft applications, as references to Internet websites of Microsoft's own choosing--websites which advertise or promote a business, company, or product. For example, in 2001, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (included with new versions of Windows) started using and embedding such smart tags automatically in displays of visited non-Microsoft webpages. This was greeted with outrage, and the practice was discontinued in further versions of the offending software. See also contextual commerce.
smear The process of creating a bold or italic version of a letterform from a regular or plain letterform by adding pixels to the bitmap letterform image. This is commonly done by operating systems if a weight or style of a font is selected for which an actual font of that weight or style is not installed. The results of using this process is somewhat unpredictable, depending on the type of font selected, the operating system, the type of video card installed, the resolution of the display, and according to what printer driver and printer is used in printing. « What you see may not be what you get ».
SMIL An acronym for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (pronounced s-m-i-l-e in English). A XML-based markup language which controls animation, audio, image, formatted text, and video elements from a single SMIL file. Adopted by the W3C in 1998 for design and layout of multimedia presentations, SMIL uses a sintax similar to HTML and XML. As of September 1998, SMIL could only be rendered by the G2 version of RealPlayer (from RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle, Washington, USA).
smoothing A process achieved by anti-aliasing images.
SOAP An abbreviation for Simple Oobject Access Protocall. A set of XML definitions and procedures used to build Web services and E-commerce features into a Website.
soft font or softfont A font which is downloaded into printer memory in order to be used in printing. The opposite would be a resident font, which is effectively always resident in printer memory.
soft hyphen A hyphen which is automatically placed at the end of a line of text as a result of hyphenating the last word.
Most page layout programs historically (but incorrectly) use the code point <002d> (actually a 'minus' in early ISO 8859 encodings), but a few use <00ad>. The soft hyphen is coded at <00ad> in ISO 8859 encodings. In ISO/IEC/10646 and Unicode, 'hyphen' is coded at <2010>, and the non-breaking hyphen at <2011>, both out of the range of ISO 8859 encodings. ANSI encoding places 'hyphen' at both <002d> and <00ad>.
solid A typeface structural style with solid stems and strokes.
solid imaging machine See stereolithography.
solid modelling machine See stereolithography.
solidus Another name for a 'slash', foward slash, or virgule glyph ( / ).
solid leading Text set with the default leading of the font or typeface (that is, without any additional interline spacing).
Soucho (Chinese/Japanese) A Chinese/Japanese typeface structural style with monoline strokes; stroke tips shaped after wood engraving; and horizontal strokes are inclined slightly to the northeast. Typeface examples are Kai Medium and Soucho.
Sosho See Soft Brush :Sosho.
spacing A property of characters which indicates the spacing behavior: whether the character is a spacing or non-spacing character. Non-spacing characters include diacritical marks and some vowels.
spamming The sending of numerous (hundreds or thousands) of electronic mail messages to an address for the purpose of overloading the receiver's account and Email system, or overwhelming the receiver with information and messages.
sparkle See brilliance.
special A property of characters having special attributes which do not fit any of the other properties. These special attributes include line boundary and spacing separation control, hyphenation, text formatting control, fraction composing, double-width non-spacing characters, conjoining control, directional ordering, substitution character behavior, and byte order determination.
Special Purpose Plane or SPP The old name for Supplementary Special Purpose Plane.
Speedo An outline font format, with hinting, developed by Bitstream for MS-DOS. Bitstream has called it « Type 2 » format, although a proprietary PostScript Type 2 format had been previously architected by Adobe Systems.
SpeirosOS An operating system based on Java developed by Cyrus Intersoft of Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
spell check A feature in many word processor, page layout, and mail applications which checks the spelling of text after it is entered and corrects misspelled words. A dictionary database is used to check spelling, and this dictionary must be changed depending on the language (or script) being used.
spine The structural portion of the letter S less the arms (ends and serifs).
spoof See character spoof.
spot color A PMS color which is printed either alone, or in combination with other spot or process colors for a multicolor document or presentation.
spot size The area on a CRT screen, photosensitive laser printer drum, or photographic medium in an imagesetter which is sensitized.
spread The slight spreading of the inner or outer edges of a solid or halftoned shape in a process color image, so that it will overlap slightly with a shape in another process color image. The slight overlap eliminates unwanted gaps which may occur due to imperfect registration of the process color images. The process of applying a spread may be done in conjunction with applying a choke, which is the opposite. These processes, called « trapping, » can be done automatically by trapping software or manually by an operator or designer during page setup, page design, or drum scanning. Sometimes, automatic trapping is unsatisfactory, and trapping must be done manually.
sprite The non-transparent portions of an image, whose overall shape is determined by a bounding box. Sometimes, the notion of a sprite is restricted to an image that can move around the screen. A glyph is a sprite which displays the image or part of an image associated with a character.
spur A short irregularity or spike where a stem meets a curved member.
Square Serif A style developed during the 19th century. Also known as « Slab-serif, » « Egyptian, » or « Antique. » Square serif styles have been subdivided into six categories: Two-weight, One-weight Unbracketed, One-weight Bracketed, Reversed-weight, Short (Stub), Typewriter, and Dot Matrix. Serifs may be bracketed (even though mainly square) or completely unbracketed.
:Two-weight - A Modern style to which weight was added to thin strokes and serifs. Typeface examples include: Bookman, Clarendon, Consort, Craw Clarendon, Egyptian, Futo Min A101, Shadow.
:One-weight, Unbracketed - As additional weight is added to the two-weight, thin strokes and serifs approach the weight of thickstrokes. When all strokes become equal weight, a completely different structural system is produced. In fact, if the serifs are removed, the stype resembles sans serif. Also known as « Monotone. » Typeface examples include: City, Glypha, Lubalin Graph, Memphis, Rockwell, and Stymie.
:One-weight, Bracketed - Same as One-weight Unbracketed, except with bracketed square serifs. Also known as « Clarendon. » Typeface examples include Egizio and Fortune.
:Reverse-weight - As this transition progresses, further weight can be added to what used to be thin strokes to make them become, instead, thick strokes. If the serifs are also made this weight, the style category becomes Reverse-weight, also known as « French Clarendon. » Typeface examples include: Barnum, Playbill, and Thunderbird. These styles can also be considered to be decorative.
:Short (Stub) - A Modern style to which weight is added to stems, and with small, stubby serifs. Typeface examples include: Cheltenham, Gloucester Old Style, Sorbonne.
:Typewriter - Originally designed for typewriters or appearing similar to typewriter designs. Typeface examples include: Courier, ITC American Typewriter, Underwood.
:Dot Matrix - Patterned after output from a dot matrix printer.
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square serif A serif made from a straight stroke.
Square Uncial See uncial.
SRA A metric document size slightly larger that "A" size, so as to allow bleeds in "A" size.
SSL See Secure Sockets Layer.
stat An abbreviated form of « photostat » which denotes an analog-produced high quality photographic copy. In the United States, the term « photostat » usually denotes an analog-produced lower quality reproduction from a single process chemical development.
steganography The art/science of hiding messages within messages or data within data. Examples of this would be digital watermarking, embedding the image of a message or graphic in a black portion of a letterform (as in a microdot), or the so-called « cheater playing cards, » where an indication of the card face is placed on the back of a card, imbedded in a complicated decorative design so as to be only detectable if one is looking for it.
stem The mostly straight vertical or near vertical and horizontal or near horizontal major structural parts of a character.
Stencil A typeface structural style having strokes which are segemented so as to appear as if painted using a stencil. The following sub-categories have been defined:
:Sans Serif - Without serifs. Typeface examples include: Braggadocio, Erie, Futura Black, Glaser Stencil Bold, Monogram Stencil, Namin.
:Serif - Having serifs. Typeface examples include: Arrow R-Stencil, Rubber Stamp, Stencil, Tea Chest.
stereolithography A process of electronically replicating a solid object or « printing » in 3-dimensions. The process was originally implemented by a machine which aims a laser in a precise raster pattern on a reservoir of liquid plastic polymer. The polymer hardens, and the process is repeated with a slightly different pattern, and so forth, until a 3-dimensional image is built up, layer by layer. The process was invented in 1984 by Charles Hull, who founded 3D Systems of Valencia, California, USA to manufacture machines, then priced at US$300,000. More modern machines operate like dual head ink-jet printers, squirting microdots of solidifying plastic, each pass adding another layer of plastic to build up the 3D object, very precisely. Sanders Prototype Inc. of Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA sells those machines for US$65,000. The machines which produce 3-dimensional solids using stereolithography are called « solid-imaging machines, » « stereolithography machines., » or « prototyping machines. »
Machines in the development stage can use ceramics, composite materials, metal, or paper as well as polymer plastics.
Stereolithography machines have been driven as an output device by CAD-CAM software (to model a solid object), or directly from CT scanners (to model bones and other internal anatomical parts for medical studies and prostheses manufacture). Stereolithography machines can be used like any ordinary output device, with the proper software « printer » driver installed. Solid objects can therefore, be literally « downloaded from the Internet. »
.STL file A binary or text format file, generated by CAD/CAM software, which contains a 3-dimensional description of a part for input to a stereolithography machine.
stochastic screening A halftone screen created with a random distribution of marks, sometimes using marks of varying size. The average separation distance between marks (frequency) and the sizes (amplitude) determine the shade represented.
A « first order » stochastic screen is one with constant amplitude. This type of screen is sometimes referred to as frequency modulated or « f.m. » screening. A « second order » stochastic screen has both varying frequency and varying amplitude. A conventional halftone screen has constant frequency and constant amplitude, but a resulting screened image always has varying frequency and varying amplitude if the image has more than one shade or tint. Stochastic screening must be applied digitally.
storage units See byte, exabyte, gigabyte, kilobyte, megabyte, petabyte, terabyte, yottabyte, zettabyte, and nibble.
story or storey An upper horizontal portion of a straight or curved letterform part. The term is often used in describing character or letterform glyphs. A script 'a', for example is usually one-story, whereas an Old Style 'a' is two-story. Similar terminology has been applied to 'g'.
strap A smaller headline placed above the main headline on a newspaper front page.
streaming A process whereby data is transferred from a source to a target in packets, subject to small timewise interruptions (periods between « time-slices » ). This process is being used more frequently in Internet information delivery technology.
stress (typical) A gradual variation of the thickness of a curved character part or stroke. More generally, any variation in the thickness of a character part or stroke.
stress angle See angle of stress.
stress mark A diacritical mark which indicates stress in pronunciation.
Several different sets of diacritical marks are used to indicate stress, depending on the particular alphabet, language, or script. For example, primary and secondary stress marks used in conjunction with the IPA phonetic alphabet cannot be found as Unicode 2.0 characters, but they are available in the Production first Software Typographic1 character set ('Special-1' Block Set) at code points <0074> and <0075>. Primary and exaggerated stress marks are available for English and Cyrillic at Unicode code points <02b9> and <02ba>; and primary and secondary stress marks for « dictionary English » are available at <0069> in the Typographic1 character set. Stress marks in IPA and English spellings appear as floating accents. In some European languages, 'acute' and 'grave' are used as diacritical mark accents over base characters to indicate stress.
strikethrough or strikethru A style of text with a horizontal continuous line at approximately half x-height. Typically used in legal documents to indicate « struck-out » or replaced text.
This is an example of strikethrough.
strike-through A soak-through of printing ink to the other side of a page.
stroke The same meaning as character part.
stroke edema A process where a stroke of a glyph outline enlarges under glyph distortion. Distortion may be caused by slanting, expanding, thickening, or envelope shaping a glyph outline. The opposite of stroke stenosis.
stroke font A font whose glyph outline font data is organized not glyph-by-glyph but, rather, by portions of a glyph, usually a stroke, group of strokes, or radical. The idea of this approach is to reduce the amount of data, and, therefore, the amount of memory or disk space required to store the font. However, the problem sometimes occurring is that the outlines of strokes overlap (in cases where strokes cross each other). This causes two problems:
(1) If the font is a PostScript font, and the layout or design application using the font has the capability of creating an outline style natively, overlapping outlines will not produce the correct results directly from the glyphs.
(2) Overlapping outlines in a glyph create difficulties with some PostScript or TrueType interpreters.
stroked font or stroked outline font A PostScript font in which the glyphs are not represented using filled outlines, but rather by a series of connected or unconnected lines or « strokes, » which lines are then broadened to a specified width with the terminal shape determined according to standard PostScript options (setlinejoin operator). Commercial PostScript fonts created as stroked outline fonts include older versions of the Courier family. Later versions of Courier were created with glyphs composed of filled outlines (the common approach).
stroke stenosis A process where a stroke of a glyph outline gets pinched under glyph distortion. Distortion may be caused by slanting, compressing, thinning, or envelope shaping a glyph outline. The opposite of stroke edema. See also anchor point.
StrokeWidth A parameter in a PostScript font which specifies the thickness of a character glyph's appearance outline when a solid design is converted to an outline design. This is presuming that the outline thickness is uniform, which it does not have to be.
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stroke width or strokewidth Sometimes refers to the thickness of strokes.
strong character A character which is designated as being usable in only one writing direction. (See weak character and neutral character for opposite concepts.)
structural system Refers to the characteristic design principles of certain groups of related typeface designs, such as Old Style, transitional, Modern, Sans Serif, etc.
style or style variation An attribute of a typeface design which provides a visual distinction while still retaining the major visual features of a design. It is usually considered a generic term. Examples of categories would be weight (light, regular, black, bold, poster, etc.), width or density (condensed, compressed, expanded, extended, titling, etc.), and form (antique, backslanted, engraved, fraktur, grunge, inline, italic, metal, modern, old style, outline, shadowed, swash, etc.). Optical size or reversal would not be considered style attributes because they constitute design alterations which serve only to improve legibility necessitated by specific conditions of use and not to introduce variety.
style era Typographic design evolved originally from hand-written letterforms, both connected and unconnected designs. When a broad quill ink pen is held at a comfortable angle during writing, the strokes produced tend to vary in width as each letterform is written. This is the basis for the variation of typographic letterform structural styles and designs. This evolution started from hieroglyphs, to primative lettering, to manuscript writing, to calligraphy. From that point in time, fairly standardized structural styles began to evolve and emerge as various classification eras Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Square Serif, sans serif, Glyphic, Script, Graphic, Eclectic, and alternative or grunge. These style eras are individually addressed and described.
style sheet Generally, a set of tags which define all aspects of appearance on a page, except for the informational content and text character properties (canonical ordering; case; combining class; directionality; letter class; mathematical; mirroring; name; numeric value class; spacing; special; and width).
More specifically, an element of HTML or XML which imparts information regarding the displaying or rendering of text. Such properties as the typeface name, pointsize, spacing, color, font style, etc. can be specified. CSS1 style sheets were supported starting with HTML 3.2, and CSS2 style sheets were supported starting with HTML 4.0. XSL style sheets were supported starting with XML.
Applications which make use of style sheets include (but are not limited to) FrameMaker, Ventura Publisher, and second generation and later Internet browsers.
subjoin A term used to denote the vertical conjoining of glyphs which then are placed, reduced in size, below the base character glyph. A script making use of subjoins is Tibetan.
subscript or subscripted character See inferior character.
subpixel or sub-pixel Refers to a portion of a pixel, or a subdivision of a pixel. Subpixel addressing or positioning can be simulated by employing anti-aliasing.
subsetting See character subsetting.
subtractive color A color reproduction technique which relies on superimposing process colors on a medium (usually paper or transparent projection film) in order to display a range of different colors. The usual process colors for this technique are cyan (a bluish-green), magenta, yellow, and black, referred to as: « CMYK » .
subtractive primary colors See process color.
Super A3/B A printing medium size of 13 inches by 19 inches or 329 mm by 483 mm.
supercell screening A type of halftone screen where the marks are not uniformly distributed, but are adjusted slightly in position so as to be varying in pitch. The adjusted positions reduce or eliminate moiré patterns when more than one screened image are superimposed, as in color imaging. Since the positioning of the marks is varying, a single mark with space around it (a « halftone cell » ) no longer describes the screen in a repeated array. Only a much larger area of marks (a « supercell » ) is representative of the screen in a repeated array. Supercell screening has varying frequency because the distances between marks are adjusted (in a predictable, non-random manner), but constant amplitude, because the marks do not vary in size. An image screened using supercell screening has varying frequency and varying amplitude if the image has more than one shade or tint.
SuperCJK or SuperCJKV Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Kangxi radicals, referring to the principal languages or scripts written using ideographs.
Supernet See NTON.
Supplementary Ideographic Plane or Supplementary Plane for CJK Unified Ideographs This term denotes the third grouping of 65,536 characters, or plane 2, of the ISO/IEC/10646 character set. This plane is intended to encode only CJKV unified ideographs.
Supplementary Multilingual Plane or SMP This term denotes the second grouping of 65,536 characters, or plane 1, of the ISO/IEC/10646 character set. This plane is intended to encode all other significant scripts of the world (mostly extinct), except CJKV unified ideographs, additional miscellaneous alphabets, and additional symbols not included in the BMP.
Supplementary Private Use plane or SPUP A plane, such as plane 15 or 16 of ISO/IEC/10646, reserved for private use. Each plane can encode 65,536 characters. Planes lower than plane 17 can also be addressed indirectly by Unicode using surrogate character pairs.
Supplementary Special Purpose Plane or SSPP Plane 14 of ISO/IEC/101646 used at this time for a tag alphabet (an alphabet used to spell out tag names).
surprint See overprint.
superior character A smaller character set near the capline. Also known as a superscript or superscripted character.
surrogate or surrogate character A property of a character being a surrogate; or one of a certain range of Unicode characters which are used in pairs to specify a 4-byte code point with UTF-16 Transformation Format to address a restricted range of additional planes (1 through 16) of ISO/IEC/10646.
The first surrogate character is called a « high surrogate, » because it represents the highest double-byte part of the 4-byte code point of ISO/IEC/10646. The second surrogate character, called the « low surrogate, » represents the lowest double-byte part of the 4-byte code point. The UTF-16 algorithm puts together two double-byte characters from the Unicode surrogate range to form a 4-byte code point which addresses the first 16 planes above the Basic Multilingual Plane of ISO/IEC/10646.
surrogate character Characters addressed by surrogate code points.
surrogate font A specified font which serves as a placeholder only. At a later time, another (final) font is substituted before some action (such as printing) is taken.
surrogate pair See surrogate character.
SVG or Scalable Vector Format SVG is an abbreviation for Scalable Vector Graphics. An open standard vector graphics language similar in concept to PostScript and based on text commands, with a syntax based on XML. Capabilities include animation, special graphic effects like gradients, and handling of type. Like PostScript, its advantages include device and resolution independence, and compact content representation. Its disadvantages, like PostScript, relates to processing resources required.
swash A flowing or other ornamental variation added to specific parts of certain characters in a typeface design.
SWOP An acronym for Specifications for Web Offset Publications. Usually used as a descriptor for a set of specifications for process color work used for preparing publications for printing.
syllabary A collection of letterforms or ideographs which represent spoken syllables or phonetic elements rather than well-formed phonetic sounds. Examples of syllabaries or syllabic scripts include Cherokee script, Hangul script, hiragana and katakana.
symbol A letterform or glyph used to represent or designate a specific entity. Examples would be reference marks.
symbol font A now generic term used for a font containing glyphs of miscellaneous symbols or pi characters.
synthetic font A modification of another PostScript font using a different FontMatrix or by calling a PostScript procedure in the body of the font. The most common implementation of synthetic fonts is to create a compressed, expanded or oblique/slanted typeface design out of a regular upright design. Internal to PostScript, it is very efficient to do this. Other, more complicated, transformations are also possible (without resorting to the use of MultipleMaster techniques) such as adding or subtracting weight, changing metrics, altering the style, or adjustments for optical size.
System Folder The disk storage area on Macintosh Systems 6 and 7 where system utilities, fonts, and other special applications must be kept.
symbol encoding A generic term used to indicate an encoding for a font containing glyphs of miscellaneous symbols or pi characters.
symbology A term denoting the format or architectural scheme of a particular barcode representation.
Symbols and Ornaments A typeface structural style category which includes symbols and ornaments. Typeface examples include: Carta, Sonata, Symbol, Universal News with Commercial Pi, WingDings, ITC Zapf Dingbats.
synthetic language A spoken language designed in a formal (rather than evolutionary) manner for human communication. Examples include Esperanto, Klingon, and Loglan. Klingon is also considered to be a separate script, whereas Esperanto and Loglan are Latin script languages.
System Folder Extension A second system folder in Macintosh System 7.
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