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Type specimen

Type. Every feature, one page. Read it tired, at night, on the phone.

Contents

This page is a test bench. It holds no argument. It sets every feature the stylesheet asks of a font, so a change of font shows its cost on one page. Read it on the laptop, on the phone, in dark mode, and on paper.

Reading

The first screen I owned asked me to agree before it let me read. I agreed in 1998, again in 2007, and again this morning. Each time the box was smaller, the text was longer, and the button was the only colour on the page.

A long paragraph tests the rhythm of the line. It needs plain words and ordinary length, so the eye can settle and the brain can stop checking. If this paragraph feels like work by the third line, the font is wrong for tired reading, whatever it looks like in a book. Count the moments you lose the line. Count the moments you reread a word. Those two counts are the test.

Italic carries a second voice: a title, a term, a word held at arm’s length. Bold is rare, firm, and never heavy. Bold or italic, never both.

Figures

In prose

Oldstyle figures sit inside the sentence like lowercase letters: born in 1983, taught in 2014, wrote 48,210 words in 2019 and 39,007 in 2026. A price of 3.50 taka, a ratio of 16:9, a page range 112–118.

In a table

YearPagesWordsChange
201911148,2100
20239641,118−7,092
20268839,007−2,111

In a list

  1. One
  2. Two
  3. Three
  4. Four
  5. Five
  6. Six
  7. Seven
  8. Eight
  9. Nine
  10. Ten: the markers should line up with nine.
  11. Eleven

Headings

A third level stays in ink

A fourth level is a label

Headings carry order by space, case and tone. The title alone grows. A second level speaks in small caps. A third stays in ink, set apart by space. A fourth steps back into the mute voice. No heading leans, and no heading shouts.

Letters

Ligatures

fi fl ff ffi ffl: office, affliction, fjord, first, flow, efficient, shuffle. Th, The, This, There: no joined capital.

Small caps

Acronyms in running text: the UN office, an PDF of 14 pages, ASD level 1, ADHD, HTML and CSS.

Shapes that blur

Letters a tired eye confuses: Il1| O0o rn m cl d e c a s g q 9 6 b h n u. Words: illicit, minimum, clear, modern, barn, burn.

Transliteration

Bangla and Sanskrit in Latin letters keep their marks: jñāna, kṛṣṇa, ḍhākā, rāṣṭra, Ṭagore, ṇa, ṃ, ḥ, ā ī ū ē ō.

Marks

“Double quotes”, ‘single quotes’, it’s, rock ’n’ roll. An en dash for ranges, 1971–2026. An ellipsis… A section sign § and a pilcrow ¶. Arrows → ← ↑ ↓. Signs: 3 × 4 = 12, 10 − 4 = 6, ≈, ≠, ≤, ≥, €, ™, №.

Superscript and subscript: x2, H2O, the 1st of October.

A footnote reference sits here.[1] A second one follows a full stop.[2]

Code

Inline code sits in the line: font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; and a key, Ctrl + S.

:root {
    --text-normal: clamp(1.25rem, 1.05rem + 0.75vw, 1.5rem);
    --space: var(--text-normal);   /* 1, 0O, Il1 */
}

Quote

The Markdown source is the archive. This sheet only renders its grammar.

Terms

Ana
One sixteenth. Sixteen ana make one taka.
Optical size
The same letter, drawn again for a size: sturdier small, finer large.

বাংলা

আমি সিনেমা থেইকা পালায়া আসছি, কিন্তু frame টা রয়ে গেছে চোখের ভিতর। ষোল আনা মানে পুরা। জ্ঞান, শ্রদ্ধা, উজ্জ্বল সন্ধ্যা, কৃষ্ণ, ক্ষমা, স্ত্রী, হৃদয়, দুঃখ, র‍্যাব, ব্র্যান্ড, ঙ্ক্ষ, ক্ত্র, ন্ত্র। “Interface” শব্দটা বাংলায় আসে ইংরেজির পোশাকে। সংখ্যা: ১৯৭১, ২০২৬, ৩.৫০ টাকা।

দ্বিতীয় অনুচ্ছেদ দেখায় লাইনের মাপ: রেফ, চন্দ্রবিন্দু, উ-কার আর য-ফলা যেন উপরের আর নিচের লাইনে না লাগে। চাঁদ, পূর্ণ, কর্ম, ধর্ম, সূর্য, ভ্রূ।

Bangla inside English

In Bangla we say ষোল আনা, sixteen ana, for whole. The line holding those two words should be as tall as its neighbours. The word জ্ঞান keeps its conjunct here, and র‍্যাব keeps its joiner. A long paragraph needs a second and a third line around the Bangla, so the spacing can be compared above and below it.

  1. The note keeps the reading size. Its number is a drawn superior figure.

  2. The second note. Follow the back link and the reference you left from stays marked.