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In
typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
, the point is the smallest
unit of measure A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multi ...
. It is used for measuring
font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...
size,
leading In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies. In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...
, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout printing's history. Since the 18th century, the size of a point has been between 0.18 and 0.4 
millimeter 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the metre and its derived scales. The microwave is between 1 meter to 1 millimeter. The millimetre (American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, ...
s. Following the advent of
desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...
in the 1980s and 1990s,
digital printing Digital printing is a method of printing from a digital-based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small-run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large-format ...
has largely supplanted the
letterpress printing Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...
and has established the DTP point (DeskTop Publishing point) as the ''de facto'' standard. The DTP point is defined as of an
international inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth") ...
() and, as with earlier American point sizes, is considered to be of a pica. In metal type, the point size of the font describes the
height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is abou ...
of the metal
body Body may refer to: In science * Physical body, an object in physics that represents a large amount, has mass or takes up space * Body (biology), the physical material of an organism * Body plan, the physical features shared by a group of anima ...
on which the
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...
's characters were cast. In digital type, letters of a font are designed around an imaginary space called an '' em square''. When a point size of a font is specified, the font is scaled so that its em square has a side length of that particular length in points. Although the letters of a font usually fit within the font's em square, there is not necessarily any size relationship between the two, so the point size does not necessarily correspond to any measurement of the size of the letters on the printed page.


History

The point was first established by the
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
ese
typographer Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...
, Francesco Torniella da Novara ( – 1589) in his 1517 alphabet, ''L'Alfabeto''. The construction of the alphabet is the first based on logical measurement called "Punto," which corresponds to the ninth part of the height of the letters or the thickness of the principal
stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
.


Notations

A measurement in points can be represented in three different ways. For example, 14 points (1 pica plus 2 points) can be written: * (12 points would be just "")—traditional style * 1p2 (12 points would be just "1p")—format for desktop * 14pt (12 points would be "12pt" or "1pc" since it is the same as 1 pica)—format used by
Cascading Style Sheets Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
defined by the
World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
.


Varying standards

There have been many definitions of a "point" since the advent of typography. Traditional continental European points at about are usually a bit larger than English points at around .


French points

The Truchet point, the first modern typographic point, was of a
French inch French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
or of the
royal foot 200px, Woodcut dated 1800 illustrating the new decimal units which became the legal norm across all France on 4 November 1800 The traditional French units of measurement prior to metrification were established under Charlemagne during the Carol ...
. It was invented by the French
clergyman Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
Sébastien Truchet Jean Truchet (1657 – 5 February 1729), known as Father Sébastian, was a French Dominican priest born in Lyon, who lived under the reign of Louis XIV. He was active in areas such as mathematics, hydraulics, graphics, typography, and for ...
. During the metrication of France amid its
revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
, a 1799 law declared the
meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
to be exactly 443.296 
French line French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
s long. This established a length to the
royal foot 200px, Woodcut dated 1800 illustrating the new decimal units which became the legal norm across all France on 4 November 1800 The traditional French units of measurement prior to metrification were established under Charlemagne during the Carol ...
of  m or about 325 mm, which made the Truchet point equal to  mm or about . It has also been cited as exactly 0.188 mm. The Fournier point was established by
Pierre Simon Fournier Pierre-Simon Fournier (15 September 1712 – 8 October 1768) was a French mid-18th century punch-cutter, typefounder and typographic theoretician. He was both a collector and originator of types. Fournier's contributions to printing were his cre ...
in 1737. The system of Fournier was based on a different French foot of c. 298 mm. With the usual convention that 1 foot equals 12 inches, 1 inch (''pouce'') was divided into 12 lines (''lignes'') and 1 line was further divided into 6 typographic points (''points typographiques''). 1 point Fournier = 0.0135 English inches. Fournier printed a reference scale of 144 points over two inches; however, it was too rough to accurately measure a single point. The Didot point, established by
François-Ambroise Didot Didot is the name of a family of French printers, punch-cutters and publishers. Through its achievements and advancements in printing, publishing and typography, the family has lent its name to typographic measurements developed by François-Amb ...
in 1783, was an attempt to improve the Fournier system. He did not change the subdivisions (1 inch = 12 subdivisions = 72 points), but defined it strictly in terms of the
royal foot 200px, Woodcut dated 1800 illustrating the new decimal units which became the legal norm across all France on 4 November 1800 The traditional French units of measurement prior to metrification were established under Charlemagne during the Carol ...
, a legal length measure in France: the Didot point is exactly of a French foot or of a French inch, that is (by 1799)  mm or about . Accordingly, one Didot point is exactly two Truchet points. However, 12 Fournier points turned out to be 11 Didot points, giving a Fournier point of about ; later sources state it as being . In Belgium the Fournier system was used until the 1970s and later. It was called the "mediaan"-system. To avoid confusion between the new and the old sizes, Didot also rejected the traditional names, thus ''parisienne'' became ''corps'' 5, ''nonpareille'' became ''corps'' 6, and so on. The Didot system prevailed because the French government demanded printing in Didot measurements. The Fournier point did not achieve lasting popularity despite being revived by the
Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with ...
in 1927. It was still a standard in
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, in parts of Austria, and in Northern France at the beginning of the 20th century.


Other European points

Approximations were subsequently employed, largely owing to the Didot point's unwieldy conversion to metric units (the
divisor In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer m that may be multiplied by some integer to produce n. In this case, one also says that n is a multiple of m. An integer n is divisible or evenly divisible by ...
of its conversion ratio has the prime factorization of ). In 1878,
Hermann Berthold August Hermann Berthold (August 19, 1831 – December 23, 1904) was a Prussian and German printer. He founded H. Berthold AG. References External links Hermann Bertholdat MyFonts MyFonts is a digital fonts distributor, based in Woburn, ...
defined 798 points as being equal to 30 cm, or 2660 points equalling 1 meter: that gives around to the point. A more precise number, , sometimes is given; this is used by TeX as the unit. This has become the standard in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe. This size is still mentioned in the technical regulations of the
Eurasian Economic Union The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU)EAEU is the acronym used on thorganisation's website However, many media outlets use the acronym EEU. is an economic union of some post-Soviet states located in Eurasia. The Treaty on the Eurasian Econo ...
.


Metric points

pdfTEX, but not plain TeX or LaTeX, also supports a ''new Didot point'' (''nd'') at  mm or and refers to a not further specified 1978 redefinition for it. The
French National Print Office IN Group (french: IN Groupe) is a French company specialized in the production of secure documents such as identity cards and passports, which it designs and sells to various governments and companies. It is the continuation of the Imprimerie Nat ...
adopted a point of  mm or in about 1810 and continues to use this measurement today (though "recalibrated" to ). JapaneseJIS X 4052:2000, JIS Z 8125:2004 and German standardization bodies instead opted for a metric typographic base measure of exactly  mm or , which is sometimes referred to as the ''quart'' in Japan. The symbol ''Q'' is used in Japanese after the initial letter of ''quarter millimeter''. Due to demand by Japanese typesetters, CSS adopted ''Q'' in 2015.
ISO 128 ISO 128 is an international standard (ISO), about the general principles of presentation in technical drawings, specifically the graphical representation of objects on technical drawings.
specifies preferred line thicknesses for
technical drawing Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and Academic discipline, discipline of composing Plan (drawing), drawings that Visual communication, visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essent ...
s and
ISO 9175 ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...
specifies respective pens. The steps between nominal sizes are based on a factor of √2 ≈ 1.414 in order to match
ISO 216 ISO 216 is an international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the "A", "B" and "C" series of paper sizes, including A4, the most commonly available paper size ...
paper size Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. ...
s. Since the set of sizes includes thicknesses of 0.1 mm, 0.5 mm, 1 mm and 2 mm, there is also one of 0.35 mm which is almost exactly 1 pica point. In other words, 2−1.5 mm = mm approximates an English typographic point rather well.


American points

The basic unit of measurements in American typography was the pica, usually approximated as one sixth of an inch, but the exact size was not standardized, and various type foundries had been using their own. After the
American war of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
was sent as commissioner (Ambassador) for the United States to France (December 1776 to 1785). While living there he had intimate contact with the Fournier family, including the father and
Pierre Simon Fournier Pierre-Simon Fournier (15 September 1712 – 8 October 1768) was a French mid-18th century punch-cutter, typefounder and typographic theoretician. He was both a collector and originator of types. Fournier's contributions to printing were his cre ...
. Franklin wanted to teach his grandson
Benjamin Franklin Bache Benjamin Franklin Bache (August 12, 1769 – September 10, 1798) was an American journalist, printer and publisher. He founded the ''Philadelphia Aurora'', a newspaper that supported Jeffersonian philosophy. He frequently attacked the Federalis ...
about printing and typefounding, and arranged for him to be trained by Francois Ambroise Didot. Franklin then imported French typefounding equipment to Philadelphia to help Bache set up a type-foundry. Around 1790, Bache published a specimen sheet with some Fournier types. After the death of Franklin, the matrices and the Fournier mould were acquired by Binny and Ronaldson, the first permanent type-foundry in America. Successive mergers and acquisitions in 1833, 1860 and 1897 saw the company eventually become known as MacKellar, Smith & Jordan. The Fournier cicero mould was used by them to cast pica-sized type. Nelson Hawks proposed, like Fournier, to divide one American inch exactly into six picas, and one pica into 12 points. However, this saw an opposition because the majority of foundries had been using picas less than one sixth of an inch. So in 1886, after some examination of various picas, the Type Founders Association of the United States approved the pica of the L. Johnson & Co. foundry of Philadelphia (hence the Johnson pica) as the most established. The company went on to become MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan Co. and was finally acquired by the Type Founders Association. The official definition of one pica is , and one point is . That means 6 picas or 72 points constitute standard inches. A less precise definition is one pica equals , and one point . It was also noticed that 83 picas is nearly equal to 35 cm, so the Type Founders Association also suggested using a 35 cm metal rod for measurements, but this was not accepted by every foundry. This has become known as the American point system. The British foundries accepted this in 1898. In modern times this size of the point has been approximated as exactly () of the inch by
Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...
for the default unit of his
TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...
computer typesetting system and is thus sometimes known as the , which is 0. mm.


Old English points

Although the English Monotype manuals used 1 pica = .1660 inch, the manuals used on the European continent use another definition: there 1 pica = .1667 inch, the Old English pica. As a consequence all the tables of measurements in the German, Dutch, French, Polish and all other manuals elsewhere on the European continent for the composition caster and the super-caster are different in quite some details. The Monotype wedges used at the European continent are marked with an extra E behind the set-size: for instance: 5-12E, 1331-15E etc. When working with the E-wedges in the larger sizes the differences will increase even more.


Desktop publishing point

The desktop publishing point (DTP point) or PostScript point is defined as or 0.013 of the international inch, making it equivalent to  mm = 0.352 mm. Twelve points make up a pica, and six picas make an inch. This specification was developed by
John Warnock John Edward Warnock (born October 6, 1940) is an American computer scientist and businessman best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, with Charles Geschke. Warnock was President of Adobe for ...
and
Charles Geschke Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, and co-creati ...
when they created Adobe PostScript. It was adopted by Apple Computer as the standard for the
display resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is ...
of the original Macintosh desktop computer and the print resolution for the
LaserWriter The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker, ...
printer. In 1996, it was adopted by
W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
for Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) where it was later related at a fixed 3:4 ratio to the
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
due to a general (but wrong) assumption of 96 pixel-per-inch screens.


Apple point

Since the advent of high-density "Retina" screens with a much higher resolution than the original 72 dots per inch, Apple's programming environment
Xcode Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 14.2, released on December 13, ...
sizes
GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
elements in ''points'' that are scaled automatically to a whole number of physical
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
s in order to accommodate for screen size, pixel density and typical viewing distance. This ''
Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
point'' is equivalent to the ''pixel'' px unit in
CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
, the ''density-independent pixel'' dp on Android and the ''effective pixel'' epx or ep in Windows UWP.


Font sizes

In lead typecasting, most font sizes commonly used in printing have conventional names that differ by country, language and the type of points used. Desktop publishing software and word processors intended for office and personal use often have a list of suggested font sizes in their user interface, but they are not named and usually an arbitrary value can be entered manually. Microsoft Word, for instance, suggests every even size between 8 and 28 points and, additionally, 9, 11, 36, 48 and 72 points, i.e. the larger sizes equal 3, 4 and 6 picas. While most software nowadays defaults to DTP points, many allow other units, especially code-based systems like TeX and CSS.


See also

*
Pica (typography) The pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to approximately of an inch, or from to of a foot. One pica is further divided into 12 points. In printing, three pica measures are used: * The French pica of 12 Didot points (also cal ...
*
Body height (typography) In digital typography, the body height refers to the distance between the top of the tallest letterform to the bottom of the lowest one.Traditional point-size names Fonts originally consisted of a set of moveable type letterpunches purchased from a type foundry. As early as 1600, the sizes of these types—their "bodies"—acquired traditional names in English, French, German, and Dutch, usually from their ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * {{Typography terms Typography Units of length Customary units of measurement in the United States