In typography, a point is the smallest unit of measure, being a subdivision of the larger pica. Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety Typographic units are the units of measurement used in Typography or Typesetting. This page is for the unit of measure For the eating disorder see Pica (disorder. It is commonly abbreviated as pt. The traditional printer's point, from the era of hot metal typesetting and presswork, varied between 0. Hot metal typesetting (also called hot lead typesetting or simply hot metal) is a term used to encompass a range of different 19th century technologies to create A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image 18 and 0. 4 mm depending on various definitions of the foot. The Millimetre ( American spelling: millimeter, symbol mm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to A foot (plural feet or foot; symbol or abbreviation ft or sometimes &prime – the prime symbol) is a non-SI unit

Today, the traditional point has been supplanted by the desktop publishing point (also called the PostScript point), which has been rounded to an even 72 points to the inch (1 point = ¹²⁷⁄₃₆₀ mm = 352. PostScript ( PS) is a dynamically typed concatenative Programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982 Inches redirects here To see the Les Savy Fav album see Inches. 7 µm). In either system, there are 12 points to the pica.

French printer’s points

See French units of measurement for the definitions of the units used in this section. In France, before the decimalised Metric system

A French law of 1799 defined the metre to be exactly 443. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a The metre or meter is a unit of Length. It is the basic unit of Length in the Metric system and in the International 296 French lines—or 3 French feet, 0 French inches and 11. 296 French lines. Since the metre is now the standard unit, this implicitly defines the Pied du Roi, or French Royal foot, as exactly ^9,000⁄_27,706 metres, or about 324. 839 385 mm. This value is used in the conversions below.

Truchet

The modern typographic point was invented in France by the clergyman Sébastien Truchet (1657–1729). The size he chose was such that 1728 of these made one Pied du Roi— using the 1799 definition, ^15,625⁄_83,118 mm (or about 187. 985 755 2 µm).

Fournier

Pierre Simon Fournier (1712–1768) used a typographic point of about ¹¹⁄₈₆₄ French Royal inches ≈ 345 µm. Pierre Simon Fournier ( September 15[[ 712]] – October 8[[ 768]] was a French mid-eighteenth century punch-cutter, typefounder and Fournier’s point did not achieve lasting popularity.

Didot

François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1801) returned to Truchet’s idea, but chose a size twice as large. Didot is the name of a family of French printers punch-cutters and publishers Thus 864 of his points made one Pied du Roi—that is, ^15,625⁄_41,559 mm ≈ 375. 971 510 4 µm.

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. Berthold is a name long associated with type design H Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern 940 µm (0. 0084% smaller)—Jan Tschichold (1902–1974), who used 266 points in 100 mm
• 375. Jan Tschichold ( April 2 1902 Leipzig, Germany &ndash August 11 1974 Locarno, Switzerland) was 000 µm (0. 2584% smaller)—proposed in 1975, but never 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 ¹²⁰⁰⁄₃₉₃₇ 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, in 1879, used a printer’s foot of an Anglo-Saxon foot decreased by 0. Nelson Crocker Hawks (1840-1929 was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA on August 21, 1840. 375%. Therefore, the traditional ratio ⁷²⁰⁰⁄₇₂₂₇ (which reduces to ⁸⁰⁰⁄₈₀₃) 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 stated in a third definition of printer’s foot that it should be ²⁴⁹⁄₂₅₀ (99. For the football player of the same name see Lawrence Johnson (football player. 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 11. 952 inches, or 303. 5808 mm exactly, giving a point size of approximately ¹⁄_{72. 27} of an inch, or 351. 5 µm.

This is the size of the point in the TeX computer typesetting system by Donald Knuth, which predates Postscript slightly. TeX (ˈtɛx as in Greek, often /ˈtɛk/ in English; written with a lowercase 'e' in imitation of the logo is a Typesetting system designed and mostly Donald Ervin Knuth (kəˈnuːθ (born 10 January 1938) is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer PostScript ( PS) is a dynamically typed concatenative Programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982 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 desk-top publishing point (DTP point) is defined as 1/72 of the anglo-Saxon compromise inch of 1959 (25. Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) combines a Personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout Software to create Publication Documents Inches redirects here To see the Les Savy Fav album see Inches. 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 standard unit for measuring font size and leading and other minute items on a printed page. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises In Typography, leading (ˈlɛdɪŋ rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical Spacing between lines of type This system was notably promoted by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, the inventors of Adobe PostScript, and therefore it is sometimes also called PostScript point. John Warnock (b October 6, 1940) is an American Computer scientist best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Charles M "Chuck" Geschke (born 1939 is best known as the co-founder with John Warnock of Adobe Systems Inc Adobe Systems Incorporated (pronounced a-DOE-bee əˈdoʊbiː ( is an American Computer software company headquartered in San Jose California PostScript ( PS) is a dynamically typed concatenative Programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982

In metal type, the point size of the font described the size (height) of the metal body on which the typeface's characters were cast. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises In digital type, the body is now an imaginary design space, but is used as the basis from which the type is scaled (see em). An em is a unit of measurement in the field of Typography, equal to the point size of the current Font.

A measurement in picas is usually represented by placing a lower case p after the number, such as "10p" means "10 picas". This page is for the unit of measure For the eating disorder see Pica (disorder. 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 pica article. This page is for the unit of measure For the eating disorder see Pica (disorder. )

See also

• Pica (unit of measure)

External links

• www.sizes.com: Printing type
• More on the story of the typographical point