X-height
- Ex (typography) redirects here. For other uses of the term "ex", see Ex (disambiguation).
In typography, the x-height or corpus size refers to the height of the lowercase letter 'x' in any font, which is usually the same for a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, and z. Letters whose height is greater than the x-height, either have descenders which extend below the baseline, such as y, g, q, and p, or have ascenders, which extend above the x-height, such as l, k, b, and d. The ratio of the x-height to the body height is one of the major characteristics that defines the appearance of a font.
The x-height of a given font is called one ex in that font, similarly to the way the width of the lowercase 'm' is called one em.
See also
Categories: Typography