Monospaced font
A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space.[1] This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters differ in size from one another.
The first monospaced typefaces were designed for typewriters, which could only move the same distance forward with each letter typed. This also meant that monospaced fonts need not be typeset like variable width fonts and were, arguably, easier to deal with.
Note that this article generally assumes Western (Latin-based, Cyrillic, or Greek) writing systems. East Asian rules of typography, for example, require CJK fonts to be always monospaced at least as far as the main characters for writing words (i.e. not punctuation) are concerned. Other scripts vary in their use of monospaced fonts.
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Use in computers [edit]
Monospaced fonts were widely used in early computers and computer terminals, which often had extremely limited graphical capabilities. Hardware implementation was simplified by using a text mode where the screen layout was addressed as a regular grid of tiles, each of which could be set to display a character by indexing into the hardware's character map. Some systems allowed colored text to be displayed by varying the foreground and background color for each tile. Other effects included reverse video and blinking text. Nevertheless, these early systems were typically limited to a single console font.
Even though computers can now display a wide variety of fonts, the majority of IDEs and software text editors employ a monospaced font as the default typeface. This increases the readability of source code, which is often heavily reliant on distinctions involving individual symbols. Monospaced fonts are also used in terminal emulation and for laying out tabulated data in plain text documents. In technical manuals and resources for programming languages, a monospaced font is often used to distinguish code from natural-language text.
The term modern is sometimes used as a synonym for monospace generic font family. The term modern can be used for a fixed-pitch generic font family name used in OpenDocument format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and Rich Text Format.[2][3]
Use in ASCII art [edit]
A monospaced font is often used in making ASCII art because of its ability to maintain the alignment of characters which are at the same position in different lines.
This is especially true in Line Drawing, where the characters are blocks and should be fixed-width.
| Normal font | Monospace font |
|---|---|
| ┌─┐ ┌┬┐ [example of line drawing characters] │ │ ├┼┤ [requires fixed-width, especially with spaces] |
┌─┐ ┌┬┐ [example of line drawing characters] │ │ ├┼┤ [requires fixed-width, especially with spaces] └─┘ └┴┘ [otherwise they are mis-aligned, as above.] |
Use in biology [edit]
Monospaced fonts are preferred for displaying nucleic acid and protein sequences, as they ensure that the representation of every nucleotide or amino acid occupies the same amount of space. Alignment of the letters makes it easier to compare different sequences visually.
Use in guitar/bass music [edit]
Monospaced fonts are frequently used in tablature music for guitar and bass guitar.
Use in film and theatre [edit]
Both screenplays and stageplays frequently use monospaced fonts, since the length of the script determines the approximate length of the production. The industry standard is 12 point Courier.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Rosendorf, Theodore (2009). The Typographic Desk Reference. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-58456-231-3.
- ^ OpenDocument v1.1 specification (PDF), retrieved 2010-05-01.
- ^ Microsoft Corporation (1992-06), Microsoft Product Support Services Application Note (Text File) – GC0165: RICH-TEXT FORMAT (RTF) SPECIFICATION (TXT), retrieved 2010-03-13.
