Editing Computer Modern (section)

==Design==
[[File:Clarendon comparison with body text faces.png|thumb|right|Computer Modern is based on late-1800s [[Didone (typography)|Didone]] type. Its direct inspiration, Monotype Modern, is at top; similar typefaces of the era included [[Century (typeface)|Century]], [[Legibility Group|Excelsior]] and [[Clarendon (typeface)|Clarendon]].]]
Computer Modern is a "[[Didone (typography)|Didone]]", or modern [[serif]] font, a genre that emerged in the late 18th century as a contrast to the more organic designs that preceded them. Didone fonts have high contrast between thick and thin elements, and their axis of "stress" or thickening is perfectly vertical. Computer Modern was specifically based on the 10 point size of the American [[Monotype Corporation|Lanston Monotype Company's]] Modern Extended 8A, part of a family Monotype originally released in 1896.<ref name="Knuth1986">{{cite book|author=Donald Ervin Knuth|title=Computer Modern Typefaces|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CwdUAAAAMAAJ|year=1986|publisher=Addison-Wesley Publishing Company|page=10|isbn=978-0-201-13446-9}}</ref><ref name="The Monotype Specimen Book of Type Faces">{{cite book |title=The Monotype Specimen Book of Type Faces |date=1922 |publisher=Lanston Monotype Machine Company |location=Philadelphia |url=https://archive.org/details/monotypespecimen00lansrich |access-date=17 August 2018}}</ref> This was one of many modern faces issued by typefounders and Monotype around this period, and the standard style for body text printing in the late nineteenth century.<ref name="Methods of Book Design">{{cite book |last1=Williamson |first1=Hugh |author-link=Hugh Williamson (book designer)|title=Methods of Book Design |date=1956 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |pages=96–8 |quote=Throughout the first half of the 19th century, modern faces held the typographic field against nearly all comers. Not all typefounders and punch-cutters were very enthusiastic about this kind of type-face, but the popular demand had to be met.}}</ref><ref name="American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century">{{cite book |last1=McGrew |first1=Mac |title=American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century |date=1993 |publisher=Oak Knoll Press |location=New Castle |isbn=0-938768-39-5 |pages=220–221|quote=In the early 1900s Monotype adapted a number of modern roman text faces to its system, mostly in a few small sizes only; some of them differ from each other only in slight changes of their proportions. |edition=Seconde édition révisée.}}</ref>

In creating the TeX publishing system, Knuth was influenced by the history of mathematics and a desire to achieve the "classic style" of books printed in metal type.<ref name="Remarks to Celebrate the Publication of Computers & Typesetting">{{cite journal|last1=Knuth|first1=Donald|title=Remarks to Celebrate the Publication of Computers & Typesetting|journal=TUGboat|date=1986|volume=7|issue=2|pages=95–8|url=http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb07-2/tb15knut.pdf|access-date=24 September 2015}}</ref><ref name="Knuth Kyoto 1996">{{cite web |last1=Knuth |first1=Donald |title=Commemorative lecture of the Kyoto Prize, 1996 |url=https://www.kyotoprize.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12kA_lct_EN.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127194502/http://www.kyotoprize.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12kA_lct_EN.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 January 2018 |publisher=[[Kyoto Prize]] |access-date=18 August 2018 }}</ref> Modern faces were used extensively for printing mathematics, especially before [[Times New Roman]] became popular for mathematics printing from the 1950s.<ref name="Three typefaces for mathematics">{{cite web|last1=Rhatigan|first1=Daniel|title=Three typefaces for mathematics|url=http://ultrasparky.org/school/pdf/DanielRhatigan_Dissertation.pdf|publisher=[[University of Reading]] (MA thesis)|access-date=2 February 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/printingofmathem0000chau/ |url-access=registration| first1=T. W. |last1=Chaundy |first2=P. R. |last2=Barett |first3=Charles |last3=Batey |title=The Printing of Mathematics |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1954 }}</ref><ref name="The Monotype 4-Line System for Setting Mathematics">{{cite web |last1=Rhatigan |first1=Daniel |title=The Monotype 4-Line System for Setting Mathematics |url=http://typeculture.com/academic-resource/articles-essays/the-monotype-4-line-system-for-setting-mathematics/ |website=Type Culture |access-date=17 August 2018}}</ref>

The most unusual characteristic of Computer Modern, however, is the fact that it is a complete type family designed with Knuth's [[Metafont]] system, one of the few typefaces developed in this way. The Computer Modern source files are governed by 62 distinct parameters, controlling the widths and heights of various elements, the presence of [[serif]]s or [[old-style numeral]]s, whether dots such as the dot on the "i" are square or rounded, and the degree of "[[superellipse|superness]]" in the bowls of lowercase letters such as "g" and "o". This allows Metafont designs to be processed in unusual ways; Knuth has shown effects such as morphing in demonstrations, where one font slowly transitions into another over the course of a text.<ref name="The Concept of a Meta-Font">{{cite journal|last1=Knuth|first1=Donald|title=The Concept of a Meta-Font|journal=Visible Language|date=1982|volume=16|issue=1|pages=3–27|url=https://m-u-l-t-i-p-l-i-c-i-t-y.org/media/pdf/The-Concept-of-a-Meta-font.pdf|access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref> While it attracted attention for the concept, Metafont has been used by few other font designers; by 1996 Knuth commented "asking an artist to become enough of a mathematician to understand how to write a font with 60 parameters is too much"<ref>CSTUG, Charles University, Prague, March 1996, Questions and Answers with Prof. Donald E. Knuth, reproduced in TUGboat '''17 (4)''' (1996), 355–67. Citation is from page 361. Available online at http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb17-4/tb53knuc.pdf</ref> while digital-period font designer [[Jonathan Hoefler]] commented in 2015 that "Knuth's idea that letters start with skeletal forms is flawed".<ref name="skeletal forms">{{cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |title=Knuth's idea that letters start with skeletal forms is flawed. But his work is important and had lasting impact. |url=https://twitter.com/HoeflerCo/status/655557339987226624 |publisher=Twitter |access-date=18 August 2018}}</ref>