How line is a line?

alistair
on 11 Mar 11 (10:14)

Hello all,

I am measuring my wood type, my thinking is this is done in lines, my type ruler only has points and inches. Anyone able to give me a measurement for a ‘line’ please?

Thank you

Alistair

dickg
on 11 Mar 11 (10:25)

A line is one pica, 15 line wood type is 15 picas. Dick G.

alistair
on 11 Mar 11 (11:26)

Thanks Dick

Googling that on my phone was, for some reason, proving problematic.

Thank you

T. J. Lyons Mem...
on 12 Mar 11 (04:39)

The correct nomenclature for wood type is, for example:

Eight-Line Pica (name of face), indicating that it was 8-times one pica.

Since wood type was not cast in molds, the only sizes were multiples (or half) of the pica, so “pica” was dropped, from the terminology, in later years; whereas, in metal type, it could be, for example: Two-Line English (name of face) or Two-Line Great Primer (name of face). In those cases, the measurement would be a multiple of the standard mold-size and not the pica.

Dave Greer