LETTERING

Lettering writing of titles, dimensions, notes and important particulars and

drawing is called lettering. It is an important part of drawing however accurate
and neat drawing may be drawn it appearance is spoiled and sometimes its
usefulness is impaired by the poor lettering should be done properly in clear
legible and uniform style.

Single Stroke Lettering – These are the simplest form of letters and are usually
employed in most of the engineering drawings. The word single stroke should not
be taken to mean that the letter should be made in one stroke without lifting the
pencil. It actually means that the thickness of the line of the lettering should be
such as obtain in one stroke of the pencil. The horizontal line of the lettering
should be drawn from left to right and vertical or incline line from top to bottom.

Single Stroke Letters- Temployed in most of the engineering drawings two types

Vertical & incline

Lettering style : Apart from the graphical elements ( lines, arcs, circles etc. )
technical drawings will also contains written information’s. These infomations are
referred as lettering.

Styles of lettering: Many styles of lettering are in use today. However a few styles
which are commonly used.

ABCDEFGH GOTHIC All letters having the elementary stroke of even width are

abcdefgh classified as Gothic.

ABCDEHG ROMAN All letters having the elementary strokes accented or

abcdefg consisting of heavy and light lines are classified as roman.

ABCDEFGH ITALIC all slanting letters are classified as ITALIC these may be
abcdefgh further designated as ROMAN ITALIC GOTHIC ITALIC TEXTITALICS.
ABCDEFGH TEXT these term includes all styles of old English German text
abcdefh Bradley text of others of various trade names text styles are too

illegible for commercial purpose.

Standard height /width: The standard height recommended by BIS (IS:9609-1983 )

are in the progressive ratio of square root 2. They are namely 2.5 - 3.5 – 5 – 7
- 10 – 14 and 20 mm. The height of the lowercase letter ( without tail of stem )
are 2.5, 3.5, 5, 7, 10 and 14mm.

There are two standard ratios for the line thickness d they are A & B. In A= line
thickness (d) is h/10.

The width of the different letters in terms of d is as follows.

Lettering A

Width( W) Capital letters Width

1 I 1d

5 J,L 5d

6 C,E,F 6d

7 B,D,G,H,K,N,O,P,R,S,T,U&Z 7d

8 A,Q,V,X,Y 8d

9 M 9d

12 W 12d

Lower case letters and numerals

Width( w ) Letters / Numerals Width

 1 I 1d

3 J,l 3d

4 F,t,l 4d

5 C,r 5d

6 A,b,d,e,g,h,k,n,o,p,q,s,u,v;3.5 6d

7 a 0 (zero),2,4,6,7,0,8,9 7d

9 m 9d

10 w 10d

The width of different letters in item of stroke ( line ) is as follows:

Lettering B. IS: 9609

Width ( W ) Capital Letters

1 I

4 J

5 C,E,F,

6 B,D,G,H,K,N,O,P,R,S,T, LU&Z

7 A,M,Q,V,X,Y

9 W

Lowercase letters and numerals

Wide ( w ) Letters / Numerals
1 i

2 lk,n,

3 j:I

4 c,f,r,t

5 a,b,d,e,g,h,k,n,o,q,s,u,v,x,y,x

0,2,3,5 to 9

6 A,4