What is the difference between font size and point size

It is a measurement of how tall a font is in pixels which are visible on your computer screen. Since computer and mobile devices all have LCD screens, it makes sense to use pixels as a unit of measurement. A point pt is equal to 0.

Because millimeters and inches are measurements of physical items, they are not ideal to use with computer or mobile based applications because they dont always represent the correct size because of differences in screen resolution. Some email clients , such as Outlook still use a point as a font size measurement when it comes to email signatures. This is rather annoying because most HTML email signatures are created using pixels for font sizes, because that is the web standard.

Units to measure the size of fonts have changed dramatically over time. Some monitors have more of them, and some have less. 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. Of course, the cap height is not the same as the point size you enter in InDesign and other applications.

Here you have to specify the body height. So you can either draw from experience or you know where to look to calculate the font size or body height from the cap height. Given the situation explained above, it is hardly possible to give reliable font size recommendations.

An easily legible font size for longer body text as used in magazines and books usually ranges between 8 and 12 points. To narrow down further, you have to know which font is used to make a reliable statement.

The same applies to business cards or letterheads for which a font size between 8 and 12 pt is equally well suited. Captions, copyright information, footnotes and similar annotations may still be legible in 7 pt. But this strongly depends on the font used and on other details, such as the line length, the amount of text or the background. Close Motion Graphics Bring your story to life for viewers with sound and imagery that makes your business stand out online.

Close Voiceovers Let our professional-grade, custom-tailored voiceovers enhance your videos and raise your company's online engagement. Font Sizes in Responsive Design: px vs. I have been working a lot with responsive design lately, and as I pointed out in an earlier post on designing for mobile devices , one of the things to keep in mind was phone number formats.

Another thing to keep in mind when developing for mobile devices is the CSS font size. Pixels have fixed sizes. One pixel is usually equal to one dot on the screen. Because pixels are fixed sizes, they do not change.

This can be a good and bad thing. However, because they are a fixed size, pixels do not size up or down. That means that fonts will be rendered smaller on a screen with higher resolution than on a lower resolution screen.

Points are a unit of measurement used in print. Points are based on an inch on a ruler, and one inch is equal to 72 points. This unit also varies greatly between different browsers and screens when used in CSS. Points are very good for setting up a print CSS to overcome that browser issue, but other than that, I would not recommend using points for developing websites.

Ems do not have fixed sizes. They are scalable, and for that reason ems are good for mobile web development. Ems are relative to the font size set in the CSS. One bad thing about ems is that they cascade, making pixel perfect designs a little more complicated.

If you have a paragraph in that div with font-size: 1. Percents are also scalable like ems. Think of it this way: 1. Percents are also good for mobile development because of their scalability.

However, they do cascade like ems. Except for points, all of the units above are good choices for front end web development. Ems and percents are particularly good for mobile web development. Get ahead of your competition and make it easy for customers to find your business online.

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