Counter
The enclosed or partly enclosed space inside a letter, as in o, e, a and P.
Near it
Aperture
Ink trap
Bowl
Text face
EarWhat it is made of
| closed counter | the white a flood from outside the letter cannot reach | |
| open counter | the partly enclosed white of a c, an e or an s | |
| measured on this shelf | the o's enclosed white as a fraction of its own ink box runs 0.0554 (Drew Extrude) to 0.4224 (Drew Hairline) across the nineteen families whose o is one closed ring | measured on the fixed shelf, 2026-09-24, which renders the o at 600px and counts pixels, because a counter is an AREA and a contrast is a RATIO and neither is in any table. The 0.1153 to 0.4794 this row carried were measured on a build replaced before it shipped. CORRECTED 2026-09-11 before that: the high pole was once misread as Drew Extended, off an unsorted table |
| and two families measure exactly ZERO | Drew Perforate and Drew Terrace | Perforate's o is six separate dashes, so the outside reaches the middle and there is no enclosed white, which is the flood definition answering its own edge case correctly. Terrace's is NOT meant to be open: its hexagon does not close at the seam on the left, a notch the flood runs through. Found 2026-09-24 by rendering the o at 300px, and owed to the foundry |
| two more that the measure does not describe | Drew Engrave 0.5892 and Drew Outline 0.5757 | both are drawn as a fine line round the Regular's silhouette, so the o is two concentric rings and the white inside the inner one is the Regular's counter, drawn. Checked by rendering the letters at 300px on 2026-09-24; until then a bar crossed the two rings at the seam, which the fix removed |
| at small sizes | a counter that closes up is a letter that turns into a blob |