SVG Text Layout

Chapter 1. Understanding Text Layout

The history of human writing includes etchings in stone and wood, impressions in clay tablets, ink applied with brushes, and ink applied with quill pens. The different means of writing have each influenced the visual appearance of the text that results.

As the technology used to create writing changed, first with the printing press, then the typewriter, then computer displays, so has the written form. In addition, geopolitical history has had its influence on writing, spreading scripts from one part of the world to another, where the writing system is adapted to different spoken languages.

This chapter reviews the core concepts common to text layout in all web documents. It starts with an introduction to the terminology used to describe letters and writing systems. It then looks at how text content, fonts, and text-rendering software combine to create text on computer displays. In particular, we focus on how markup languages like HTML, XML, and SVG interact with styling rules in CSS to define text layout within web browsers. Finally, we review the main features of SVG text layout, as a big-picture introduction to the rest of the book.

The Language of Text

When describing written text, there are some important distinctions to make between the concepts of written language and its execution in physical form. If you are going to make sense of a book about text, you need to understand the words we use to describe the words we write.

Text is a physical ...