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1---
2title: Typographic Names
3---
4# Typographic Names
5
6CLDR maintains typographic terms for apps like word processors, graphic design apps, or font pickers in operating systems.
7
8![image](../../images/TypographicNames.png)
9
10## Common Problems
11
12**When entering translations, please refer to a terminological dictionary or ask a professional graphic designer/printer**.
13
14A quick web search or Wikipedia lookup will usually not find the correct terms. Most native speakers do not know the correct terminology unless they work in the graphics industry. For some languages, there’s also special-interest sites on the web that care about correct terminology; for example, [typolexikon.de](http://www.typolexikon.de/) in German.
15
16The most common problem is giving the same name to two *different* fields. For example, you must *not* give the same name to [wght-400 (English=“regular”)](http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/de/Typography/147d124e18ef76e9) and [wdth-100 (English=“normal”)](http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/de/Typography/29a3de4cf27e33c6).
17
18**However, there is an important exception for Feature fields that have a suffix after a number ("-heavy"), such as** [**wght-900-heavy (English=“heavy”)**](http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/de/Typography/292fe4e98aa53cfe)**. You can** ***(and often should)*** **give the same name in your language to these as you give to the Code without a suffix.**
19
20**That is: the name in your language for** [**wght-900-heavy (English=“heavy”)**](http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/de/Typography/292fe4e98aa53cfe) **can be identical to the name for** [**wght-900 (English=“black")**](http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/v#/de/Typography/435b966dbd7681ab)**: both could be “schwartz” in German.**
21
22**Slant vs Italic**
23
241. Slant is different than italic: in the latter, the characters are slanted, but also usually different shapes. See [Italic](http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/characters-emoji-symbols/typographic-names/italic.png).
25
26**Width vs Weight**
27
281. The wdth-100 and wght-400 (which are *normal* and *regular* in English) must have different names: *normal* is width (how wide the character is — see [Width](http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/characters-emoji-symbols/typographic-names/optical-size.png)), and *regular* is boldness (how heavy the lines in the character are — see [Weight](http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/characters-emoji-symbols/typographic-names/font-weight-2.png)). If there is not a distinction in your language, you can qualify, eg *normal-width*
292. Similarly wdth-125 and wght-700 (in English: *wide* and *bold*) need to be different (width vs boldness)
303. However, only the first two parts of the code make a difference (up to and including the number). The last part (after the number) is purely optional. You only need to have different names for the optional ones if your language really has alternative names for the same feature. That means that you can give the same names to each of the following:
31	- wdth-50
32	- wdth-50-compressed
33	- wdth-50-narrow
34
35## Samples
36
37### Weight
38
39![image](../../images/font-weight.png)
40![image](../../images/font-weight-2.png)
41
42The **Weight axis** is used to vary text from lighter to bolder. See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font#Weight).
43
44### Width
45
46![image](../../images/font-width.png)
47
48The **Width axis** is used to vary text from narrower to wider. Also called “stretch”. See [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/dvaraxistag_wdth).
49
50### Italic
51
52![image](../../images/italic.png)
53
54The **Italic axis** is used to vary text from upright/plain/regular to cursive/italic. See also [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_type) and [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/dvaraxistag_ital).
55
56### Slant
57
58![image](../../images/oblique.png)
59
60The **Slant axis** is used to vary text from upright/plain/regular to slanted/oblique. See [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/dvaraxistag_slnt).
61
62![image](../../images/reverse-oblique.png)
63
64Fonts can also be slanted towards the opposite of the reading direction.
65
66This style is called **reverse oblique, reverse slanted,** or **back slanted.**
67
68### Optical Size
69
70![image](../../images/optical-size.png)
71
72The **Optical Size axis** is used to adjust letterforms to different text size, from fine print to large display type. See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font#Optical_size), [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/dvaraxistag_opsz), or [here](http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/type/pdfs/ArnoPro.pdf) (page 11) for a nice description.
73
74