Typeface Classification Standards

Linotype Numbering System

In Linotype Univers and Univer Next font family, a three-number system is used. First numeral describes font weight, second numeral describes font width, third numeral describes position.

Unlike the original Univers, titled fonts in Linotype Univer and deriviative font families have not been named 'oblique'.

PANOSE System

PANOSE System is a method for classifying typefaces entirely on their visual characteristics; it can be used to identify an unknown font from a sample image, or to match a known font to its closest visual neighbor from a font pool.

The term "PANOSE" is composed of letters taken from the six classes in which its creator (Benjamin Bauermeister) organized the Latin alphabet within the system.

PANOSE's classification number consists of ten concatented values, each from a given category and computed from a specific visual metric, such as a font's weight + sans-serif, or font's weight + serif. Each category has special values of "Any" (0) and "No Fit" (1), directing special meanings to the mapper: "Any" means match that digit with any available digit, allowing the mapper to handle distortable typefaces. "No Fit" means that the item being classified does not fit within the present system.

PANOSE standard classifies fonts in the following categories, in the following order:

1. Family: The Family value defines what type of font is being classified, which affects the valid values available for the latter categories, and the categories available. Different category definitions exist for Latin Text, Latin Hand Written, Latin Decorative, Latin Symbol, Iconographic, Japanese Text, Cyrillic Text and Hebrew.

2. Latin Text Categories

   1. Serif Style: it describes the appearance of the serifs used in a font design and groups them into one of 14 general categories. Serif and sans serif faces are classified within this digit.

   2. Weight: it classifies the appearance of a font's stem thickness in relation to its height. It offers 10 gradations, ranging from Very Light to Extra Black.

   3. Proportion: it describes the relative proportions of the characters in the font. Distinguishes Monospaced from Proportional, Modern from Old Style, and Extended from Condensed.

   4. Contrast: it describes the ratio between the thickest and narrowest points on the letter O. The uppercase O is used because it is generally of higher contrast than the other characters of the alphabet.

   5. Stroke Variation: it specifies the relationship between the thicknesses of the thin stems and the wide stems. It further details the contrast trait by describing the kind of transition that occurs as the stem thickness changes on rounded glyph shapes.

   6. Arm Style: it classifies special treatment of diagonal stems and termination of open rounded letterforms. The letter A and C are used extensively for this classification, along with G, M, S, V, W, and Y.

   7. Letterform: it classifies roundness of the character shapes and the predominant skewing of the character forms.

   8. Midline: it describes the placement of the midline across the uppercase characters and the treatment of diagonal stem apexes.

   9. X-height: it describes the treatment of uppercase glyphs with diacritical marks and the relative size of the lowercase characters.

3. Latin Hand Written Categories: Note: Requires Expansion!

   1. Tool Kind: .

   2. Weight: .

   3. Spacing: .

   4. Aspect Ratio: .

   5. Contrast: .

   6. Topology: .

   7. Form: .

   8. Finials: .

   9. X-ascent:

4. Latin Decoratives Categories: Note: Section requires descriptive expansion!

   1. Class: .

   2. Weight: .

   3. Aspect: .

   4. Contrast: .

   5. Serif Variant: .

   6. Treatment: .

   7. Lining: .

   8. Topology: .

   9. Range of Characters: .

5. Latin Symbol categories

   1. Kind: .

   2. Weight: .

   3. Spacing: .

   4. Aspect Ratio & Contrast: .

   5. Aspect Ratio of Character 94: .

   6. Aspect Ratio of Character 119: .

   7. Aspect Ratio of Character 157: .

   8. Aspect Ratio of Character 163: .

   9. Aspect Ratio of Character 211: .

PANOSE Example

Easy example: the PANOSE digits for Times New Roman are:

PANOSE 2.0

The system stores actual measurement data under the Rich Font Description (aka rfd) rather than bucketing it, which allows the matching system to use mathematical distance rather than penalty tables. It is designed for distortable font technologies (e.g.: Multi Master fonts). The system offers multiple methods for distortable fonts.

The original classification system was changed from a bucket-based system to an arithmetic system (except the Family from PANOSE 1.0 and derivatives), and was expanded to following categories:

Each PANOSE 2.0 category value is a signed 16-bit number (from −32,768 to 32,767; only ranges between −10,000 and 10,000 are defined), where value zero (0) is considered to be the "normal" for the digit. For example, digit zero for the weight represents medium weight. The "any" value from PANOSE 1.0 is translated to a "don't care" parameter and is replaced by the more comprehensive distortable font descriptions.

The Family category is replaced by Class and Genre, where Class indicates a font's language and character set, where Genre indicates text faces, display faces, symbol faces, and so on. PANOSE matching software is designed to match fonts with different Class, but same Genre. The same Genre can have different meaning in different Class, so the matching heuristic decides the closeness of fonts based on adjusted values based on Class, rather than raw PANOSE values within the fonts themselves.

References and Resources

• Panose Guide - Monotype Imaging
• Panose sub-dialog for fontforge Font Info dialog

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