A hand compositor's bench for iOS
Real character widths, Knuth-Plass line breaking and a type area drawn by the diagonal canon. Join the typographers, letterpress printers and students who treat the screen as a stick and a case.
Download LexisochYour next proof is a heading, a paragraph and one tap away.
Copy a preset, paste it into your first job and see how the bench reacts. Choose one card, then install.
The body size and lead used by the sample job On the Measure.
OLDSTYLE-11-14A measure to test the diagonal canon and its haptic snap.
CANON-24P1The fount size from the Case screen, before you lock up.
FOUNT-24APresets are settings to type into your own job, not discounts. Price, in-app purchases and age rating are shown on the App Store listing.
Bring a heading and paragraphs of copy, choose a fount and a body size, and Lexisoch sets the page as a metal compositor would. Each word carries its true set width, drawn from the type specimen of the fount, so a line is measured the way a stick is filled.
Lines are broken by the Knuth-Plass total-fit algorithm, which judges the whole paragraph instead of one line at a time. Every interword gap is filled with real spacing sorts: em, en, thick, mid, thin and hair. Whatever remains is packed with brass and copper. On the Galley screen you drag the outer-bottom corner of the type area and the setting re-breaks under your finger, while looseness bars, measure, depth, characters per line and average adjustment ratio update beside it.
The type area follows the classical diagonal canon, the construction that shaped books from the fifteenth century onward, and the block snaps to it with a haptic detent. Next comes the Forme screen, where furniture, reglets and quoins are arranged in a Kelsey, C&P or proof-press bed chase. Then you pull a two-colour proof, with rubric ink for the heading and text ink for the body, and the Proof Book keeps every pull for comparison.
| App name | Lexisoch |
|---|---|
| Platform | iOS, App Store id 6830689712 |
| Category | Graphics & Design |
| Version | 2.1 |
| Release notes | General fixes |
| Founts shown | Old-style, Grotesque, Typewriter |
| Spacing sorts | em, en, thick, mid, thin, hair |
| Chase beds | Kelsey, C&P, proof-press |
| Rating | None shown yet |
| Size, OS, age rating | See the App Store listing |
| Page checked | 14.11.2026 |
Six working tools, each built for the people who plan jobs, trade proofs and argue happily about margins.
Every character uses its width from the fount specimen, so the line you see is the line the metal would make.
Drag the gold corner of the type area and the paragraph re-breaks at once, with per-line looseness bars beside every line.
The Case screen shows how many of each letter a fount holds against what the job needs. Shortages are flagged and the letters that run out first are listed.
Wood furniture, reglets and quoins are placed around your type in the chase you choose, using the fewest standard-size pieces.
Each pull is recorded with line counts, loose and tight tallies and a comparison against the previous pull. Filter by job and save any proof to Photos.
Photograph a book or broadside, drag six handles, and read back margins in millimetres, the nearest canon division and the measure in picas.
iOS, App Store, version 2.1. Pricing is shown on the App Store page, and the install runs like any other iPhone app.
Download LexisochOperating system requirements, ads, purchases and age rating are not published in the materials we reviewed. Check them on the App Store listing before you install.