Metric typographic units
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most desktop publishing software, coming from the US, such as Adobe PageMaker and QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign, uses the PostScript point as the unit of measurement for typography. PostScript points are defined as 1/72 of an inch, which is 0.3527777778 millimetres in SI. In the push towards metrication of all standards throughout the world, a metric standard has been devised for typography.
[edit] Other proposals
The DIN standard uses the H-height for the second value, but some typographers have proposed using the x-height instead.
[edit] Device resolutions in metric
Computer screens denote resolution in millimetres (mm) pitch and office printers usually denote resolution in dots per inch (dpi), but phototypesetters have long used micrometres (μm). To convert dpi resolution to μm resolution, the formula to be used is simply 25400 / R , where R is the resolution in dpi. So for example 76dpi translates to a resolution of 334.21 μm.
The CSS3 media queries standard uses a unit dpcm (dots per centimetre) for resolution.
