Update: For your forking pleasure, check out the github repository.

If you’re a web designer, you’re probably familiar with the typographical concept of “baseline rhythm“.

While tackling the problem on this site, all I could find were baseline rhythm calculators. Sure, that helps a little, but it wasn’t quite what I needed. So I wrote this bookmarklet, creatively named “Baseline Checker”.

screenshot

What it does

It draws equally spaced horizontal lines on top of a webpage. The position and the distance between the lines is calculated in reference to a particular element on that page.

With it, you can see for yourself if the baseline is consistent or not.

How to use it

  1. “Install” the bookmarklet by dragging ( Baseline Checker ) to your bookmarks menu.
  2. Go to a webpage and then click the bookmarklet.
  3. Click an element on the page.

Icon credit: Sam Rayner

PS: You might also want to look at jMetronome.