>>Why wouldn’t a 200 y.o. type style line up with a 30 year old memo.
The reason is that typefaces are proprietary. They are even copyrighted. Times Roman in WordPerfect, for example, is NOT the same as Times New Roman in Word.
The vast majority of people don't realize this, but typesetters and publishers do. Little things are dead giveaways, like the angle of the crossbar in a lower case "e" or the angle of the tip of the serif of the uppercase "T" or the shape of the "belly" of the lowercase "a."
To most people, Times Roman is Times Roman is Times Roman. In fact, Word uses Times NEW Roman. It's a Truetype font. I don't know who owns the copyright but it's definitely a new recutting of the old type.
Typefaces are cut by hand, I suspect you did not realize that either. The originals are, that is. Now they probably "cut" using something like a CAD program, in the old days the metal was actually cut by hand in steel using fine tools. Then these were copied for mass production.
Edit: the copyright for the Times New Roman font is owned by the Monotype corporation.
More: >> Times New Roman was originally designed by Stanley Morrison for the Times newspaper of London in 1931. It evolved from Plantin (designed by F.H Pierpont in 1913 for Monotype) and Gros Cicero (designed by Robert Granjon in 1568). Times is engineered to save space in newspaper printing and it became popular during WWII because it helped save paper. It was later adopted by Henry Luce for his publishing empire in the United States and has been used by newspapers ever since.
The original versions of Times Roman were designed for hot-metal composition and the basic character designs and spacing were modified slightly in each point size to maximise legibility: small sizes had looser letter spacing, thicker strokes and shorter ascenders/descenders. Unfortunately these fine adjustments are lost when Times is scaled from an outline font for electronic typesetting. The characters also lose their elegance when printed at low resolutions.
On the desktop, Times can be used to connote tradition and elegance. With its narrow shapes and tight letter spacing it is best used in narrow columns of text, say no more than 60 characters wide. If you must use wider columns, increase the leading between the lines to make it easier for the eye to follow. Sizes smaller than 9 points may need extra letter spacing to prevent the serifs of letters actually touching each other.
Adapted from "The Electronic Publisher"
by D. Burns, S. Venit and R. Hansen.
typetamer.com.au
Edit again: I learned typesetting on an old Varitype machine. My first job was set in 12 point Times Roman but I made corrections in 14 point Palatino. I literally COULD NOT SEE the difference. Amazing to me now. |
