font

A font is a complete character set in a particular size and style of a typeface. Historically, a font referred to a metal or wood casting of a specific size and weight; today it usually means a digital file that defines a typeface at a given size and weight.

A typeface is the design of the lettering—the shapes and proportions—while a font is the concrete set of glyphs that renders that design at a specific size and style. A family may include multiple fonts such as regular, bold, and italic, all built from the same typeface.

Common categories include serif (with small decorative strokes), sans-serif (without serifs), monospace (equal-width glyphs), and display or decorative faces. Subgenres include slab serifs, humanist, geometric, and script faces used for headlines, branding, or emphasis.

Historically, movable type was developed in the 15th century by Gutenberg. Digital typography emerged in the late 20th century with formats such as TrueType and OpenType; fonts are now distributed as files usable by software. OpenType combines features from earlier formats and supports advanced typographic features. Web fonts use formats like WOFF to enable typography on websites.

Typography relies on metrics such as kerning (spacing between pairs), leading (vertical spacing), and tracking (overall letter spacing). Baseline, ascenders, and descenders describe how glyphs sit within and extend above or below the text line.

Fonts are protected by licensing and embedding rights. Some are open source; others are commercial. Web and app developers often use licensing agreements and technologies such as @font-face to embed fonts in documents and websites.

On the web, fonts are selected with font-family declarations and loaded as needed for consistent rendering across devices.