Instructions for manually setting the four meta: properties on all 64 Typography glossary entries. These properties cannot be set programmatically due to Notion's colon-prefixed property name parser conflict.
What needs fixing
Four properties on each of the 64 Typography glossary pages are empty and need values:
Property | Rule | Value |
meta:title | CR-12 | Copy the Name property verbatim |
meta:description | CR-13 | First sentence of the definition (see reference table below) |
meta:author | CR-14 | Spelunker (same for all 64) |
meta:pubDate | CR-15 | 2026-03-21 (creation date, same for all 64) |
Fastest workflow
- Open the Website database filtered to
Area = GlossaryandGlossary Categories = Typography - Add
meta:title,meta:description,meta:author, andmeta:pubDateas visible columns - Bulk-fill
meta:author→Spelunkeracross all 64 rows - Bulk-fill
meta:pubDate→2026-03-21across all 64 rows - For
meta:title, copy each row's Name value intometa:title(they are identical) - For
meta:description, use the reference table below — each value is the first sentence of the definition, stripped of mention links
Reference table — meta:description values
Copy-paste the description for each term. These are the opening sentences of each definition, written as plain text (no mention markup).
Umbrellas
- Typography — The art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and visually engaging.
- Type Classification — A system for grouping typefaces into categories based on shared formal characteristics — stroke contrast, serif treatment, construction method, and historical origin.
- Type Anatomy — The formal vocabulary used to describe the structural components of letterforms.
- Typesetting — The process of arranging type on a page or screen to achieve optimal legibility and readability.
- Font File Types — The digital file formats used to store and render typefaces on computers and output devices.
- Typeface — The complete design of a set of characters unified by consistent visual characteristics — including stroke weight, stress angle, serif treatment, and proportions.
- Font — In traditional typography, a complete set of metal sorts — all the characters of a single typeface in one specific size and style — cast as a unit for composition.
- Kerning — The selective adjustment of horizontal space between specific pairs of characters to achieve optically even spacing.
- Em — A typographic unit of measurement equal to the current point size of the type being set.
- Alignment — The horizontal positioning of lines of text within a column or text frame.
- Serif — A category of typefaces distinguished by small projecting strokes — called serifs — at the terminals of the main strokes of each character.
Core Concepts + History
- Glyph — The specific visual representation of a character within a particular typeface, size, and style.
- Movable Type — A printing technology in which individual characters are cast as separate reusable metal, wood, or ceramic sorts that can be composed into pages, printed, and redistributed.
- Printing Press — A mechanical device that transfers ink from a raised or incised surface onto a substrate — typically paper — by means of applied pressure.
- Illuminated Manuscript — A hand-produced text — typically on vellum or parchment — embellished with decorative initials, borders, and miniature illustrations rendered in pigment and gold or silver leaf.
Primary Classifications
- Sans Serif — A category of typefaces whose letterforms lack the projecting terminal strokes (serifs) found in serif designs.
- Slab Serif — A subcategory of serif typefaces characterized by thick, block-like serifs of uniform or near-uniform weight that project at right angles from the main strokes.
- Script — A category of typefaces that emulate the fluid, connected strokes of handwriting or calligraphy.
- Calligraphic — A typeface style modeled on formal calligraphic hands — typically produced with a broad-nibbed pen held at a consistent angle.
- Handwriting — A typeface category that replicates the irregular, spontaneous character of casual personal handwriting rather than formal calligraphic scripts.
- Blackletter — A category of typefaces derived from the formal manuscript hands of northern Europe from roughly the twelfth to the seventeenth century.
Classification Subgroups + Roman
- Display/Decorative — A broad classification encompassing typefaces designed primarily for use at large sizes in headlines, posters, signage, and branding rather than in continuous body text.
- Old Style — The earliest major subdivision of serif typefaces, originating with the Venetian printers of the late fifteenth century and refined by French punchcutters such as Claude Garamond in the sixteenth.
- Transitional — A subdivision of serif typefaces that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century as a bridge between Old Style and Modern Serif designs.
- Modern Serif — A subdivision of serif typefaces that reached its definitive form in the late eighteenth century through the work of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot.
- Grotesque — The earliest subgroup of sans serif typefaces, originating in the early nineteenth century.
- Neo-Grotesque — A refinement of the earlier Grotesque sans serifs, developed in the mid-twentieth century to eliminate the idiosyncrasies and irregularities of the original grotesques.
- Humanist Sans Serif — A subgroup of sans serif typefaces whose proportions, stroke modulation, and overall rhythm are derived from the forms of Renaissance humanist handwriting and early roman typefaces.
- Geometric — A subgroup of sans serif typefaces constructed from elementary geometric shapes — the circle, the rectangle, and the straight line.
- Roman — The standard upright style of a Latin-script typeface, serving as the default reading weight within a type family.
- Baseline — The invisible horizontal line on which the main body of lowercase and uppercase letters sits.
Type Anatomy
- X-Height — The vertical distance from the baseline to the flat top of lowercase letters without ascenders — typically measured on the letter x.
- Cap Height — The vertical distance from the baseline to the flat top of uppercase letters such as H, I, and E.
- Ascender — The portion of a lowercase letter that rises above the x-height.
- Descender — The portion of a lowercase letter that extends below the baseline.
- Counter — The enclosed or partially enclosed negative space within a letterform.
- Bowl — The curved stroke that encloses or partially encloses a counter in a letterform.
- Stem — The primary vertical or near-vertical stroke that forms the structural backbone of a letterform.
- Stroke — Any single continuous line — straight or curved — that constitutes part of a letterform's visible structure.
- Serif (Anatomy) — A small, usually perpendicular finishing stroke attached to the end of a main stroke in a letterform.
- Terminal — The endpoint of any stroke that does not conclude in a serif.
- Aperture — The degree of openness of a partially enclosed counter — the gap where an interior space opens to the exterior of the letterform.
- Axis / Stress — The implied angle of the thinnest points in a curved stroke, indicating the direction of stress within the letterform.
Type Family + File Types
- Type Family — The complete set of stylistic and weight variations designed around a single typeface.
- Weight — The relative thickness of a typeface's strokes, expressed as a named grade within the type family's range.
- Italic — A companion style within a type family in which the letterforms are not merely slanted but redesigned with a distinct, calligraphically inflected structure.
- Oblique — A slanted variant of the Roman (upright) style produced by geometrically tilting the existing letterforms rather than redrawing them with calligraphic modifications.
- Variable Font — A single font file that contains a continuous range of stylistic variations along one or more design axes.
- OpenType — A cross-platform font format jointly developed by Microsoft and Adobe that extends TrueType with support for advanced typographic features.
- TrueType — A font format developed by Apple in the late 1980s and subsequently adopted by Microsoft as the standard system font technology for Windows.
- Web Font — A font specifically licensed and formatted for delivery over the web via CSS @font-face rules.
Typesetting + Readability
- Leading — The vertical distance between successive baselines in a block of text, controlling how much white space separates lines of type.
- Tracking — The uniform adjustment of spacing across an entire range of characters in a text block.
- Measure — The width of a line of text in a column or text block, traditionally expressed in picas or ems.
- Hierarchy — The system of visual distinctions — achieved through variations in size, weight, color, spacing, style, and position — that guides the reader's eye through a composition in order of importance.
- Legibility — The ease with which individual characters and words can be distinguished and identified, determined primarily by the intrinsic design of the typeface.
- Readability — The overall comfort and efficiency with which a reader can process continuous text.
- Typographic Color — The overall density or 'grayness' of a block of text as perceived when the page is viewed from a distance or squinted at.
Remaining Terms
- Monospaced — A typeface in which every character occupies the same horizontal width, regardless of its natural form.
- Ligature — A single glyph formed by combining two or more characters that would otherwise collide or create awkward spacing when set adjacently.
- Small Caps — Uppercase letterforms drawn at approximately x-height (or slightly taller) with stroke weights optically adjusted to match the color of the surrounding lowercase text.
- Orphan & Widow — Two related typesetting defects involving isolated lines at column or page breaks.
- Optical Size — A design variation within a type family that optimizes letterforms for a specific rendering size.
- Swash — An exaggerated, decorative extension or flourish added to the entry or exit strokes of a letterform.