Technical information

Italic was originally developed in the early sixteenth century as a type-
face based on cursive handwriting. Today’s italics are still individually
crafted typefaces designed to blend with a specific roman (upright)
typeface. Oblique (or slanted) type forms, however, are not designed
and crafted individually but are mechanically slanted versions of the
roman form from which they derive. The following example shows the
roman and italic forms of Times and the roman and oblique forms of
ITC Avant Garde:
Times Roman
Times Italic
ITC Avant Garde
ITC Avant Garde Oblique
Orientation is the direction of the print or image on a page. Portrait
orientation reads from left to right, across the narrower dimension of
the page. Landscape orientation also reads from left to right but
places the print across the wider dimension of the page. Spreadsheet
and table applications commonly use landscape printing. Both terms
derive from painting; a portrait is usually a vertical view while a land-
scape is usually a horizontal view.