or FONT, among printers, &c., a set or quantity of characters or letters of each kind, cast by a letter-founder, and sorted.—We say, a founder has cast a fount of pica, of englith, of pearl, &c., meaning that he has cast a set of characters of these kinds.

A complete fount not only includes the running letters, but also large and small capitals, single letters, double letters, points, commas, lines, and numeral characters.

Founts are large or small, according to the demand of the printer, who orders them by the hundred weight, or by sheets. When the printer orders a fount of 500, he means that the fount should weigh 500lb. When he demands a fount of 10 sheets, it is understood, that with that fount he shall be able to compose 10 sheets, or 20 forms, without being obliged to distribute. The founder takes his measures accordingly; he reckons 120 pounds for a sheet, including the quadrates, &c., or 60 pounds for a form, which is half a sheet: not that the sheet always weighs 120 pounds, or the form 60 pounds; on the contrary, it varies according to the size of the form; besides, it is always supposed that there are letters left in the cases.

The letter-founders have a kind of list, or tariff, whereby they regulate their founts: the occasion thereof is, that some letters being in much more use, and oftener repeated than others, their cells or cases should be better filled and stored than those of the letters which do not return so frequently. Thus the o and i, for instance, are always in greater quantity than the k or z.

This difference will be best perceived from a proportional comparison of those letters with themselves, or some others. Suppose a fount of 100,000 characters, which is a common fount; here the a should have 3000, the e 3000, the c 11,000, the i 6000, the m 3000, the k only 30, and the x, y and z, not many more. But this is only to be understood of the letters of the lower case; those of the upper having other proportions, which it would be, here, too long to insist on.