page_title: Italic type
section_title: Examples
hierarchical_section_title: Italic type / Examples
caption_attribution_description: Table that shows the differences between Russian cyrillic characters in italics and non-italics. In many cases, the browser does not render italic cyrillic characters correctly as "real" italics, but simply uses slanted non-italic characters. This is why this table is presented as a graphic. Русский: Курсивный и прямой варианты шрифта для кириллицы.
context_page_description: In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed text, to identify many types of creative works, to cite foreign words or phrases, or, when quoting a speaker, a way to show which words they stressed. One manual of English usage described italics as "the print equivalent of underlining"; in other words, underscore in a manuscript directs a typesetter to use italic.
  The name comes from the fact that calligraphy-inspired typefaces were first designed in Italy, to replace documents traditionally written in a handwriting style called chancery hand. Aldus Manutius and Ludovico Arrighi were the main type designers involved in this process at the time. Different glyph shapes from Roman type are usually used – another influence from calligraphy – and upper-case letters may have swashes, flourishes inspired by ornate calligraphy. An alternative is oblique type, in which the type is slanted but the letterforms do not change shape: this less elaborate approach is used by many sans-serif typefaces.
context_section_description: Here is an example of normal (roman) and true italics text:
  Here is the same text as oblique text:
  True italic styles are traditionally somewhat narrower than roman fonts. Below are some examples, besides the slant, of other possible differences between roman and italic type that vary according to how the types are designed. (The graphics illustrate transformations from roman to italic.)
  None of these differences are required in an italic; some, like the "p" variant, do not show up in the majority of italic fonts, while others, like the "a" and "f" variants, are in almost every italic. Other common differences include:
  Double-loop g replaced by single-loop version.
  Different closing height where the forked stroke intersects with the stem (e.g. : a, b, d, g, p, q, r, þ).
  Bracketed serifs (if any) replaced by hooked serifs.
  Tail of Q replaced by tilde (as in, for example, the Garamond typeface).
  Less common differences include a descender on the z and a ball on the finishing stroke of an h, which curves back to resemble a b somewhat. Sometimes the w is of a form taken from old German typefaces, in which the left half is of the same form as the n and the right half is of the same form as the v in the same typeface. There also exist specialised ligatures for italics, such as when sp is formed by a curl atop the s that reaches the small ascender at the top of the p.
  In addition to these differences in shape of letters, italic lowercases usually lack serifs at the bottoms of strokes, since a pen would bounce up to continue the action of writing. Instead they usually have one-sided serifs that curve up on the outstroke (contrast the flat two-sided serifs of a roman font). One uncommon exception to this is Hermann Zapf's Melior. (Its outstroke serifs are one-sided, but they don't curve up.)
  Outside the regular alphabet, there are other italic types for symbols:
  Ampersand resembles an ET ligature more than the Roman version (e.g.: ITC Garamond)
  Asterisk is rotated instead of slanted (e.g.: Bookman Old Style, ITC Garamond).
  Question mark resembles a reversed Latin S.
caption: Cyrillic characters in italics and nonitalics
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