How tall is 8 pt type

There are fonts which are identical both in terms of body height fonts set in 12 pt and actually measurable letter size same point size of the capital letters measured with the typometer.

Nevertheless, they appear different in size and their legibility varies, especially in small point sizes. Why is that? A letter has different anatomical features. This is illustrated in the graphic below:. Besides shapes, line width and letter width, it is mainly the x-height that is decisive for the optical size. Often the letters have a size ratio according to the Golden Ratio at a factor of 1.

But as always these proportions are only an average. Many fonts use other proportions and these work just as well. And although you have to be careful when making generalised statements about font size, it can be said that fonts with large x-heights compared to the cap height tend to appear larger than fonts where the x-height is relatively small.

Remember: Not all 12 pt fonts are made the same. Depending on the font, the differences can be considerable: A 12 pt font can appear small like an 8 pt font or large like a 16 pt font. So what to do if you have a template and need to find out which font sizes are used, for example, to lay out a new flyer based on an old template?

There are different approaches to accomplish this, but unfortunately no generally applicable standards. Using a typometer, which is a ruler divided in typographic points, we can measure printed fonts. But there are different ways to measure, different typometers and ultimately different point sizes here as well. For this purpose, most typometers feature printed rectangles. But they, too, are difficult to measure, especially in case of cursive and handwritten fonts.

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What is a Point pt? Conversion Chart. Points Pixels 6pt 8px 7pt 9px 7. Why the difference between pixels and points for fonts? The above examples are two of the many different ways you can adjust the font size when creating a web page. See the link below for additional help and examples. Home Dictionary F - Definitions. How is the font size measured? How to change the font size. Font size in web design. Why are most of the fonts everywhere small? Related pages. Tip To change the font size of a printed page, increase the font size in the program you are using.

Related pages Increase or decrease font size in Word using a keyboard shortcut.