| Point | |
|---|---|
 A ruler showingpoint scale (on the bottom) andinch scale (on the top) | |
| General information | |
| Unit system | typographic unit |
| Unit of | length |
| Conversions | |
| 1 pointin ... | ... is equal to ... |
| typographic units | 1/12 picas |
| imperial/U.S. units | 1/72 in |
| metric (SI) units | 0.3528 mm |
Intypography, thepoint is the smallestunit of measure. It is used for measuringfont size,leading, 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 millimeters. Following the advent ofdesktop publishing in the 1980s and 1990s,digital printing has largely supplanted theletterpress printing and has established thedesktop publishing (DTP)point as thede facto standard. The DTP point is defined as1⁄72 of aninch (or exactly 0.3527 mm) and, as with earlier American point sizes, is considered to be1⁄12 of apica.
In metal type, the point size of a font describes theheight of the metalbody on which that font's characters were cast. In digital type, letters of acomputer font are designed around an imaginary space called anem 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.[1][2]
The point was first established by theMilanesetypographer,Francesco Torniella da Novara (c. 1490 – 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 principalstroke.[3][4]
A measurement in points can be represented in three different ways. For example, 14 points (1 pica plus 2 points) can be written:
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| Name | Year | mm | inch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ≈ 0.350 mm | ||||
| Fournier[6] | 1737 | ≈ 0.345 | 0.0135 | |
| American | 1886 | ≈ 0.3515 | = 0.013837 | |
| Japanese[7] | 1962 | = 0.3514 | ≈ 0.013835 | |
TeX pt | 1982 | = 0.35145980 | ≈ 0.013837 | = 1⁄72.27 |
PostScript, CSS pt, TeX bp | 1984 | = 0.3527 | = 0.0138 | = 1⁄72 |
| ≈ 0.375 mm | ||||
| Didot | 1783 | ≈ 0.375972 | ≈ 0.0148 | |
| Berthold | 1878 | ≈ 0.376 | ≈ 0.014801 | |
DIN actual,[8] TeX dd | 1964 | = 0.376065 | ≈ 0.014806 | |
DIN nominal,[8] TeX nd | 1984 | = 0.375 | ≈ 0.014764 | |
| Other | ||||
| Truchet | 1694 | ≈ 0.188 | ≈ 0.007401 | |
| L'Imprimerie Nationale nominal | 1810 | = 0.400 | ≈ 0.015748 | |
| L'Imprimerie Nationale actual | 1810 | = 0.398 77 mm | ≈ 0.0157 | |
DIN,[9] Japanese, CSS q | 1999 | = 0.250 | ≈ 0.009842 | |
There have been many definitions of a "point" since the advent of typography. Traditional continental European points at about0.375 mm are usually a bit larger than English points at around0.350 mm.
TheTruchet point, the first modern typographic point, was1⁄144 of aFrench inch or1⁄1728 of theroyal foot.[citation needed] It was invented by theFrenchclergymanSébastien Truchet. During themetrication of France amid itsrevolution, a 1799 law declared themeter to be exactly 443.296 French lines long. This established a length to theroyal foot of9000⁄27706 m or about 325 mm. The Truchet point therefore became equal to15625⁄83118 mm or about0.187986 mm. It has also been cited as exactly 0.188 mm.
TheFournier point was established byPierre Simon Fournier in 1737.[10][11][12]: 60–66 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). One Fournier point is about 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.[11]
The Fournier point did not achieve lasting popularity despite being revived by theMonotype Corporation in 1927.[citation needed] It was still a standard inBelgium, in parts of Austria, and in Northern France at the beginning of the 20th century.[12]: 66 In Belgium, the Fournier system was used until the 1970s and later. It was called the "mediaan"-system.
TheDidot point, established byFrançois-Ambroise Didot in 1783,[13] 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 theroyal foot, a legal length measure in France: the Didot point is exactly1⁄864 of a French foot or1⁄72 of a French inch, that is (by 1799)15625⁄41559 mm or about0.375972 mm. Accordingly, one Didot point is exactly two Truchet points.
However, 12 Fournier points turned out to be 11 Didot points,[11]: 142–145 giving a Fournier point of about0.345 mm; later sources[12]: 60–61 state it as being0.34875 mm. To avoid confusion between the new and the old sizes, Didot also rejected the traditional names, thusparisienne becamecorps 5,nonpareille becamecorps 6, and so on.[11]: 143 The Didot system prevailed because the French government demanded printing in Didot measurements.[14][better source needed]
Approximations were subsequently employed, largely owing to the Didot point's unwieldy conversion to metric units (thedivisor of its conversion ratio has theprime factorization of3×7×1979).
In 1878,Hermann Berthold defined 798 points as being equal to 30 cm, or 2660 points equalling 1 meter: that gives around0.376 mm to the point.[15][16][17][18] A more precise number,0.376065 mm, sometimes is given;[16] this is used by TeX as thedd unit. This has become the standard in Germany[8] and Central and Eastern Europe.[19] This size is still mentioned in the technical regulations of theEurasian Economic Union.[20]
pdfTEX, but not plain TeX or LaTeX, also supports anew Didot point (nd) at3⁄8 mm or0.375 mm and refers to a not further specified 1978 redefinition for it.[citation needed]
TheFrench National Print Office adopted a point of2⁄5 mm or0.400 mm in about 1810 and continues to use this measurement today (though "recalibrated" to0.39877 mm).[21][22][23]
Japanese[24] and German[9][16][18] standardization bodies instead opted for a metric typographic base measure of exactly1⁄4 mm or0.250 mm, which is sometimes referred to as thequart in Japan. The symbolQ is used in Japanese after the initial letter ofquarter millimeter. Due to demand by Japanese typesetters, CSS adoptedQ in 2015.[25][26]
The basic unit of measurements in American typography was the pica,[12][27][28] usually approximated as one sixth of an inch, but the exact size was not standardized, and various type foundries had been using their own.[12]
During and after theAmerican Revolutionary War,Benjamin Franklin was sent as commissioner (Ambassador) for the United States to France from December 1776 to 1785.[29] While living there he had close contact with the Fournier family, including the father andPierre Simon Fournier. Franklin wanted to teach his grandsonBenjamin Franklin Bache 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.[30][31] 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 theL. Johnson & Co. foundry of Philadelphia (the "Johnson pica") as the most established.[27] The Johnson foundry was influential, being America's first and oldest foundry; established as Binny & Ronaldson in 1796, it would go through several names before being the largest of the 23 foundries that would merge in 1892 to form the American Type Founders Co.[32] The official definition of one pica is 0.166044 inches (4.2175 mm), and one point is 0.013837 inches (0.3515 mm). That means 6 picas or 72 points constitute0.99624 standard inches. A less precise definition is one pica equals 0.166 inches (4.2 mm), and one point 0.01383 inches (0.351 mm).[27][33] 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.[27]
This has become known as theAmerican point system.[27][33] The British foundries accepted this in 1898.
For theTeX computer typesetting system he invented in the 1970s,Donald Knuth declared the size of the point to be exactly1⁄72.27 of the inch.[34] This is sometimes known as theTeX point. Since 1 inch is exactly 2.54 cm in the SI unit system, it follows that, 1 TeX pt =1⁄72.27 in = 0.01383700 in = 0.03514598 cm = 0.35145980 mm, where the overbar denotes the repeating part of a repeating decimal. This is trivially different from the American point.
Although the English Monotype manuals used 1 pica = 0.1660 inches (4.22 mm), their manuals used on the European continent use another definition. There, 1 pica = 0.1667 in (4.23 mm), 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.[35]
Thedesktop publishing point (DTP point) orPostScript point is defined as1⁄72 or 0.0138 of an inch,[citation needed] making it equivalent to25.4⁄72 mm = 0.3527 mm. Twelve points make up a pica, and six picas make an inch.
This specification was found in the Xerox Interpress language used for its early digital printers and further developed byJohn Warnock andCharles Geschke when they createdAdobe PostScript.[citation needed] It was adopted by Apple Computer as the standard for thedisplay resolution of theoriginal Macintosh desktop computer and the print resolution for theLaserWriter printer.[36][failed verification][37][failed verification]
In 1996, it was adopted byW3C forCascading Style Sheets (CSS) where it was later related at afixed 3:4 ratio to thepixel (e.g. 12 pt and 16 px are the same in CSS) due to a general (but wrong) assumption of 96pixel-per-inch screens.[citation needed]
Since the advent of high-density"Retina" screens with a much higher resolution than the original 72 dots per inch, Apple's programming environmentXcode sizesGUI elements inpoints that are scaled automatically to a whole number of physicalpixels in order to accommodate for screen size, pixel density and typical viewing distance.[citation needed] ThisCocoa point is equivalent to thepixelpx unit inCSS, thedensity-independent pixeldp onAndroid[38] and theeffective pixelepx orep in WindowsUWP.[citation needed]
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 (the font sizes 36, 48 and 72 equal 3, 4 and 6 picas respectively). While most software nowadays defaults to DTP points, many allow specifying font size in other units of measure (e.g., inches, millimeters, pixels), especially code-based systems such as TeX and CSS.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)They commissioned for this purpose the well-known Berlin brass rule manufacturer, H. Berthold, who supplies brass rules not only to most of the German foundries but also to many foreign houses, and he, in conjunction with Prof. W. Fürster, the chief director of the Berlin Observatory, agreed that 2660 typographical points of the Didot system should correspond to one metre. Accordingly the Standard Gauge Commission in Berlin in 1879 arranged a standard measure of 30 centimetres = 133 nonpareil or 798 typographical points, and gave a copy to all the German foundries, and since that time disputes about the Didot depth were unknown in Germany.
Кегль измеряется в типографских пунктах. Типографский пункт равен 0,376 мм.
The point in current use at the Imprimerie Nationale measures 0.39877 mm. This appears to be the result of a 'recalibration', for which no date can be given, of the point of 0.4 mm.
These latter figures give the size in the 'points millimétriques' of about 0.4 mm that are said to have been introduced at the Imprimerie impériale by Firmin Didot and which are the basis for the 'point IN' used today at the Imprimerie nationale.
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