Betkészlet

Betkészlet is a Hungarian term meaning a set or stock of letters. In typography and printing, it refers to the collection of individual letter forms used for typesetting, whether in traditional metal type or in digital fonts. The concept encompasses all characters needed to render a language or text, including uppercase and lowercase letters, digits, punctuation, ligatures, and diacritical marks.

Historically, a betkészlet consisted of physical sorts neatly organized in cases or drawers by character and size. Printers would select the appropriate sorts to form lines of text, with separate inventories for different point sizes and typefaces. For languages such as Hungarian, a complete betkészlet had to include diacritics like á, é, ő, ű and other language-specific glyphs to ensure correct representation and readability.

In modern contexts, the term is often used to describe the glyph repertoire of a font or font family. A comprehensive betkészlet for a project includes the necessary characters across styles (regular, bold, italic) and weights, as well as numerals, punctuation, and currency symbols. For localization and software development, ensuring a complete betkészlet is essential to avoid missing glyphs and to support proper encoding, typically via Unicode standards.

Applications of a betkészlet include traditional printing, font design, and digital typography for publishing, advertising, and software internationalization. The concept highlights the distinction between a font as a design and the actual inventory of glyphs available for use in a given language or application.