In
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, a
point is the smallest
unitTypographic units are the units of measurement used in typography or typesetting. The traditional units are different from common metric units, as they were established earlier. Even though these units are all very small, across a line of print they add up quickly...
of measure, being a subdivision of the larger
picaA pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to 1/72nd of its respective foot, and therefore to 1/6th of an inch. The pica contains 12 point units of measure....
. It is commonly abbreviated as
pt. The traditional printer's point, from the era of
hot metal typesettingIn printing and typography, hot metal typesetting refers to 19th-century technologies for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs...
and
pressworkA printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium , thereby transferring an image. The mechanical systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw-presses used to press...
, varied between 0.18 and 0.4 mm depending on various definitions of the foot.
Today, the traditional point has been supplanted by the desktop publishing point (also called the
PostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. PostScript is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas....
point), which has been rounded to an even 72 points to the
inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
(
1 point = mm ≈ 0.353 mm).
In
typographyTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, a
point is the smallest
unitTypographic units are the units of measurement used in typography or typesetting. The traditional units are different from common metric units, as they were established earlier. Even though these units are all very small, across a line of print they add up quickly...
of measure, being a subdivision of the larger
picaA pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to 1/72nd of its respective foot, and therefore to 1/6th of an inch. The pica contains 12 point units of measure....
. It is commonly abbreviated as
pt. The traditional printer's point, from the era of
hot metal typesettingIn printing and typography, hot metal typesetting refers to 19th-century technologies for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs...
and
pressworkA printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium , thereby transferring an image. The mechanical systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw-presses used to press...
, varied between 0.18 and 0.4 mm depending on various definitions of the foot.
Today, the traditional point has been supplanted by the desktop publishing point (also called the
PostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. PostScript is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas....
point), which has been rounded to an even 72 points to the
inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
(
1 point = mm ≈ 0.353 mm). In either system, there are 12 points to the pica.
French printer’s points
- See French units of measurement
In France, before the decimalised metric system of 1799, a well-defined old system existed, however with some local variants. For instance, the lieue could vary from 3.268 km in Beauce to 5.849 km in Provence...
for the definitions of the units used in this section.
A
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
law of 1799 defined the meter to be exactly 443.296 French lines—or 3 French feet, 0 French inches and 11.296 French lines. Since the meter is now the standard unit, this implicitly defines the
Pied du Roi, or French Royal foot, as exactly meters (about 0.325 m). This value is used in the conversions below.
Truchet
The modern typographic point was invented in France by the clergyman
Sébastien TruchetSébastien Truchet was an eclectic Dominican Father born in Lyon and lived in Louis XIV times. He is known for being active in areas such as mathematics, hydraulics, graphics, typography, and for many inventions....
(1657–1729). The size he chose was such that 1728 of these made one
Pied du Roi— using the 1799 definition, mm (or about
0.188 mm).
Fournier
Pierre Simon FournierPierre Simon Fournier was a French mid-eighteenth century punch-cutter, typefounder and typographic theoretician. He was both a collector and originator of types”. Fournier's contributions to printing were his creation of initials and ornaments, his design of letters, and his standardization of...
(1712–1768) used a typographic point of about French Royal inches ≈ 0.345 mm. Fournier’s point did not achieve lasting popularity, despite being revived by the Monotype Corporation Ltd. in 1927. Nowadays, Belgium remains one of the few countries to employ Fournier's point. According to the Second Edition of Simon's 1963 Introduction to Typography, type styles such as, Fournier, Plantin and Imprint "are more successful in their smaller sizes."
Didot
François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1801) returned to Truchet’s idea, but chose a size twice as large. Thus 864 of his points made one
Pied du Roi—that is, .
This value—somewhat odd due to the divisor, which has the prime factorization 3 × 7 × 1979—was not very flexible for use by typesetters and printers. Though the general size of the Didot point continued to be preferred to that of Truchet, several other printers each chose his or her own value for the point. These are compared below:
- 376.065 µm (0.0249% larger than Didot's point)—the traditional value in European printers' offices
- 376.000 µm (0.0076% larger)—used by Hermann Berthold (1831–1904) and many others
- 375.940 µm (0.0084% smaller)—Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer.-Life:Tschichold was the son of a provincial signwriter, and he was trained in calligraphy...
(1902–1974), who used 266 points in 100 mm
- 375.000 µm (0.2584% smaller)—proposed in 1975, but hardly adopted
Note that the French National Print Office adopted a point of
400 µm exactly, and continues to use this measurement today.
The Didot point has been replaced by the
DTP point in France and throughout the world.
Traditional American point system
By the (Kasson) Metric Act of 1866 (Public Law 39-183), the US (survey) foot is m. This is 0.0002% more than 304.8 mm, which is the length of the Anglo-Saxon compromise foot of 1959, used below.
A typographic foot contains 72 picas or 864 points.
- Nelson C. Hawks
Nelson Crocker Hawks was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA on August 21, 1840. He is notable for creating the 12-points-per-inch pica typographical standard [1]. This system was first used by typographers to make the standard-sized letter-blocks used by printers, and now by font designers to make...
, in 1879, used a printer’s foot of an Anglo-Saxon foot decreased by 0.375%. Therefore, the traditional ratio (which reduces to ) places Hawks’ point at 0.013 837 inch, or about 351.46 µm.
- A second definition was proposed whereby there were exactly 996 printer’s points (= 83 picas) in 350 mm, which made the printer’s point about 0.013 848 867 inch ≈ 351.405 622 µm.
- Finally, Lawrence Johnson
Lawrence Johnson is a pole vaulter, born in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. LoJo began pole vaulting in 1989 and since has records on all stages and led the charge to return the US to the international medal podium...
stated in a third definition of printer’s foot that it should be (99.6%) English foot. This means that the Johnson’s typographical point was 0.01383 inch, and was then converted by the 1959 value to 351.36 µm.
In 1886, the Fifteenth Meeting of the Type Founders Association of the United States approved the so-called
Johnson pica be adopted as the official standard. This makes the traditional American printer’s foot measure , or 303.5808 mm exactly, giving a point size of approximately of an inch, or
351.5 µm.
This is the size of the point in the
TeXTeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth...
computer typesetting system by
Donald KnuthDonald Ervin Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University....
, which predates
PostscriptA postscript, abbreviated P.S., is writing added after the main body of a letter . The term comes from the Latin post scriptum, an expression meaning "written after"
slightly. Thus the latter unit is commonly called the
TeX point.
Like the French Didot point, the traditional American printer’s point was replaced in the 1980s by the current computer-based DTP point system.
Current DTP point system
The
desktop publishingDesktop publishing combines a personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout software to create publication documents on a computer for either large scale publishing or small scale local multifunction peripheral output and distribution....
point (DTP point) is defined as 1/72 of the Anglo-Saxon compromise
inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
of 1959 (25.4 mm), it is approximately
0.0139 inch or
352.8 µm. Twelve points make up a pica, and six picas make an inch.
The point is the usual unit for measuring
fontIn typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks; it may also include ideograms and symbols, or consist...
size and
leadingIn typography, leading refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type. In consumer-oriented word processing software, this concept is usually referred to as "line spacing" and the inclusion of a full line of space between each line is known as "double spacing", but in page...
and other minute items on a printed page. This system was notably promoted by
John WarnockJohn Edward Warnock is an American computer scientist best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company. Dr. Warnock was President of Adobe for his first two years and Chairman and CEO for his remaining sixteen years at the company...
and
Charles GeschkeCharles M. "Chuck" Geschke is best known as the co-founder with John Warnock of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, in 1982....
, the inventors of
AdobeAdobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. The company has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software...
PostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. PostScript is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas....
, and therefore it is sometimes also called
PostScript point.
In metal type, the point size of the
fontIn typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks; it may also include ideograms and symbols, or consist...
described the size (height) of the metal body on which the
typefaceIn typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks; it may also include ideograms and symbols, or consist...
's characters were cast. In digital type, the body is now an imaginary design space, but is used as the basis from which the type is scaled (see
emAn em is a unit of measurement in the field of typography, equal to the point size of the current font. This unit is not defined in terms of any specific typeface, and thus is the same for all fonts at a given point size...
).
A measurement in
picaA pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to 1/72nd of its respective foot, and therefore to 1/6th of an inch. The pica contains 12 point units of measure....
s is usually represented by placing a lower case p after the number, such as "10p" means "10 picas". Points are represented by placing the number of points after the p, such as 0p5 for "5 points," 6p2 for "6 picas and 2 points", or 1p1 for "13 points" which is converted to a mixed fraction of 1 pica and 1 point. (An alternate nomenclature is described in the
picaA pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to 1/72nd of its respective foot, and therefore to 1/6th of an inch. The pica contains 12 point units of measure....
article.)
Traditional point-size names
The following names were often used in the English-speaking world for the point sizes usually available for letterpress printing:
5.5:
agateAn agate is a unit of typographical measure. It is 5.5 typographical points, or about 1/14 of an inch. It can refer to either the height of a line of type or a font that is 5.5 points. An agate font was commonly used to display statistical data or legal notices in newspapers...
6 pt:
nonpareille
7 pt:
minion
8 pt:
brevier,
petit or
small text
9 pt:
bourgeois or
Galliard
10 pt:
long primer,
corpus" or Garamond
(c.f. GaramondClaude Garamond was a Parisian publisher. He was one of the leading type designers of his time, and several contemporary typefaces, including those named Garamond, Granjon, and Sabon show his influence...
)
11 pt: small pica
or philosophy
12 pt: picaA pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to 1/72nd of its respective foot, and therefore to 1/6th of an inch. The pica contains 12 point units of measure....
or cicero
14 pt: English
, mittel
or Augustin
15 pt: Columbian
18 pt: great primer
21 pt: double small pica
24 pt: double pica
or two-line pica
36 pt: double great primer
or two-line great primer
44 pt: Meridian
or Trafalgar
48 pt: canon
or four-line
72 pt: inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
Note that the point sizes given here are approximate—often, the exact size would vary from foundry to foundry or country to country. For example, metal type which was called agate has been known to have been from 5 points and up to 5.8 points. Note also that some of the sizes given are no longer considered part of the "traditional scale", such as 15 point type and 44 point type.
Correspondence to Chinese font sizes
In
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, point size is not used much; instead the following Chinese size names are used (e.g. in the Chinese version of Microsoft Word):
| Chinese size name |
Translation |
Equivalent point size |
| chū (初) |
"initial" |
42 points |
| xiǎochū (小初) |
"small initial" |
36 points |
| yī (一) |
"one" |
28 points |
| èr (二) |
"two" |
21 points |
| xiǎo'èr (小二) |
"small two" |
18 points |
| sān (三) |
"three" |
15.75 points |
| sì (四) |
"four" |
14 points |
| xiǎosì (小四) |
"small four" |
12 points |
| wǔ (五) |
"five" |
10.5 points |
| xiǎowǔ (小五) |
"small five" |
9 points |
| liù (六) |
"six" |
7.875 points |
| qī (七) |
"seven" |
5.25 points |
The syllable 号 (hào, "size") is appended to the Chinese name when it is not obvious that a font size is being referred to.
External links