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Butterick's
Practical
Typography

2nd edition

Butterick's Practical Typography

Typography in ten minutes

Summary of key rules

Start

  * foreword by Erik Spiekermann
  * introduction
  * how to use this book
  * acknowledgments
  * about Matthew Butterick
  * legal

Please pay for this book

  * how to pay for this book
  * why you should pay
  * MB fonts

Why typography matters

  * what is typography?
  * who is typography for?
  * why does typography matter?
  * what is good typography?
  * where do the rules come from?

Type composition

  * straight and curly quotes
  * one space between sentences
  * question marks and exclamation points
  * emoticons & emoji
  * semicolons and colons
  * paragraph and section marks
  * parentheses, brackets, and braces
  * hyphens and dashes
  * ampersands
  * signature lines
  * trademark & copyright symbols
  * ellipses
  * apostrophes
  * accented characters
  * foot and inch marks
  * white-space characters
  * word spaces
  * nonbreaking spaces
  * tabs and tab stops
  * hard line breaks
  * carriage returns
  * hard page breaks
  * optional hyphens
  * math symbols
  * ligatures

Text formatting

  * underlining
  * goofy fonts
  * monospaced fonts
  * bold or italic
  * all caps
  * point size
  * headings
  * letterspacing
  * kerning
  * color
  * alternate figures
  * ordinals
  * web & email addresses
  * emails
  * small caps
  * hierarchical headings
  * OpenType features
  * mixing fonts
  * metrics vs. optical spacing

Font recommendations

  * font basics
  * Equity
  * Valkyrie
  * Century Supra
  * Concourse
  * Hermes Maia
  * Triplicate
  * Advocate
  * system fonts
  * free fonts
  * Charter
  * Helvetica & Arial alternatives
  * Times New Roman alternatives
  * Courier alternatives
  * Palatino alternatives
  * Baskerville alternatives
  * Century Schoolbook alternatives
  * Georgia alternatives
  * Verdana alternatives
  * Gill Sans alternatives
  * Cambria alternatives
  * Calibri alternatives
  * Minion alternatives
  * bad fonts

Page layout

  * centered text
  * justified text
  * first-line indents
  * space between paragraphs
  * line spacing
  * line length
  * page margins
  * body text
  * hyphenation
  * block quotations
  * bulleted and numbered lists
  * tables
  * rules & borders
  * widow and orphan control
  * space above & below
  * page break before
  * keep lines together
  * keep with next paragraph
  * columns
  * grids
  * paragraph & character styles
  * maxims of page layout

Sample documents

  * research papers
  * letterhead
  * business cards
  * resumes
  * grids of numbers
  * presentations
  * websites

Afterword

Appendix

  * typewriter habits
  * printers and paper
  * how to make a PDF
  * identifying fonts
  * em sizing
  * bibliography
  * screen-reading considerations
  * responsive web design
  * how to work with a designer
  * the copyright status of fonts
  * how this book was made
  * typographic humor
  * common accented characters
  * Concourse Index
  * contact

Commentary

  * Why there's no e-book or PDF
  * The economics of a web-based book: year one
  * Why Racket? Why Lisp?
  * The billionaire's typewriter
  * The infinite-pixel screen
  * Effluents influence affluence
  * Vote with your wallet, not your ad blocker
  * Drowning the "Crystal Goblet"
  * To pay or not to pay
  * The scorpion express: thoughts on variable fonts
  * Are two spaces better than one?
  * Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no
  * Typography 2020: a special listicle for America
  * The cowardice of Brave
  * Oscars 2020: best-picture typography
  * MB lectures & articles

Also by Matthew Butterick

  * MB Type (fonts used in this book)
  * Typography for Lawyers (paperback)
  * Pollen (software used to make this book)
  * Beautiful Racket (book about programming)
  * MB XS (mailing list)

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