Italic type

Italics (italic print) or text set in italics (from the Middle Latin cursivus 'flowing, common', formed from the Latin cursare 'to run on and on', which in turn was formed from the Latin currere 'to hurry, to run') is a typeface designation in typography for typesetting in which the characters are slanted in the direction of writing. It is mainly used to emphasize text ‑passages. The English term is italics or italic (adjective), the last is often used in software.

For this type of font marking, a specially designed typeface is usually used. In a font family, the italic style is coordinated with the normal style, so that a harmonious typeface is created when both styles are mixed in a text.

Properties and distribution

Whereas in normal antiqua, which is perpendicular (recte) to the line, the glyphs are vertical, in an italic typeface they appear to be running, racing - they are slanted, tilted to the right, and may form ligatures. They may also be different in shape from the corresponding non-italic glyphs. Examples of this are the "single-storey" form ɑ of the lowercase a or the descender of the lowercase f (see example on the right).

Italics are not only found in the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic script also distinguishes between cursive and upright forms. For broken typefaces, italic, as well as bold, type styles are traditionally uncommon. In fracture typesetting, therefore, the blocking type dominates for distinction.

The terms italic and cursive

The term italic goes back to that of cursive. However, the two terms are by no means congruent. "Italic" refers to cursive (also called running or running script), i.e. typefaces that are suitable for rapid writing by hand. They originated from writing with a quill and similar writing utensils, as well as the demand for high writing speed. They usually have connected letters and are also often, but not necessarily, slanted. The adjective italic and the noun cursive, on the other hand, usually refer to typesetting. The characteristic common feature of italic weights is the slant of the characters, which are otherwise usually unconnected like the characters in normal weights.

The English term cursive means "cursive" and not "italic". It is used in computer systems (for example, in HTML or CSS), among other things, to generally indicate that a font from the font class of cursive fonts is to be used for display, without explicitly naming a specific cursive font. The operating system or the application program then uses an available font preset for this font class.

Away from typography, fonts such as Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese calligraphy forms are sometimes called "cursive", even though this only has to do with the concept of a (handwritten) cursive and nothing to do with cursive typesetting fonts. Conversely, in German printer-speak, a cursive typesetting script is sometimes called a "cursive", although this term actually refers to handwriting. This adds to the confusion of terms, whereas in English the two subjects are linguistically more clearly delineated by the terms italic and cursive.

The first cursive printed by Aldus Manutius, 1501. The capitals here are still recte.