Baseline (typography)

In European and West Asian typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters sit and below which descenders extend.

Most, though not all, typefaces are similar in the following ways as regards the baseline: The vertical distance of the base lines of consecutive lines in a paragraph is also known as line height or leading, although the latter can also refer to the baseline distance minus the font size.

Northern Brahmic scripts have a characteristic hanging baseline; the letters are aligned to the top of the writing line, marked by an overbar, with diacritics extending above the baseline.

East Asian scripts have no baseline; each glyph sits in a square box, with neither ascenders nor descenders.

When mixed with scripts with a low baseline, East Asian characters should be set so that the bottom of the character is between the baseline and the descender height.