Carter studied at the progressive Bedales School (where he was a friend of John Rothenstein), and at The Queen's College, Oxford "where he became competent in French, German, Spanish, and Russian".

[1] At this time he formed friendships with Jan van Krimpen, Stanley Morison, Francis Meynell, and Oliver and Herbert Simon (cousins of his school-friend, John Rothenstein).

In 1937, Carter, Ellic Howe, Alfred F. Johnson, Stanley Morison and Graham Pollard started to produce a list of all known pre-1800 type specimens.

In 1954 Carter was hired by Oxford University Press, where he worked for sixteen years.

He also cataloged thousands of matrices, punches, and fonts for the Plantin-Moretus Museum, and assisted Charles Enschede with his Typefoundries in the Netherlands.