Newbie question about cap height

jamis827 July 2011 · 11:59

Quick question from a newbie:

Say I have a button that's 50 px tall.

When vertically aligning text within a button what's the proper top and bottom padding?

Should
distance from top button edge to Cap height = distance from bottom button edge to baseline?

Or does it make sense to add 1-2 pixels on the bottom since centered text appears lower?

Assume a 37px tall button with 12px Arial.

or should some other measure be used to vertically center it?

This kind of thing is probably best judged by eye. One variable would be whether the text is all caps or includes lowercase.

I usually put things in the optical centre, which is as you say, slightly above the geometric centre. Judge by eye.

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