How tall is 10 pt font

So if you enter a 10 pt font size in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, you define that your font will have a size of 3. In theory at least.

In manual typesetting, the body height is defined by the height of the lead type or metal sort on which the actual font face, the printing surface of the type, is moulded.

It is surrounded by blank or empty portions of the letterform, the so-called counters. When Gutenberg set a 12 pt font, it was the metal type and not the printed letter that had a vertical height of 12 points. Hence, the body height is generally bigger than the printed glyph.

In the age of digital type, we no longer work with lead type. But the body height is still an important reference measure in font design. Now one could assume that you would merely have to take away 15 percent of counter space, i.

So when entering 12 pt minus 15 percent, each font would then have an actually measurable height of But this is not the case as you have probably noticed: Two different fonts set in the same point size can appear similar in size or look surprisingly different.

Apart from the optical size, which is also important, the usage of the body height is decisive for the actually measurable final size. Typeface designers are free to decide how to use the body height to create a balance between printed glyph and non-printing space around it.

Depending on how the available space is used, the actually measurable font will be bigger or smaller. When considering sizes, we have to remember the effect a font has. 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? You can assume that these will be read indoors, or at least at close distance, at probably much less than feet. You can have your main text between 72 pt. These large format materials are also a good way to share slogans or any other message in public.

This makes yard signs and banners popular with advertising agencies and suitable for for political campaigns and for any type of advocacy. You can increase the size to pt. You can refer to our recommended font size chart above. Unlike banners and yard signs, display boards typically have some detailed text.

For the main headers, you will want to follow the same general guidelines as you would for menu boards. Chances are your display board will be less than feet away from readers. In these cases, you can have your header text between 72 pt. You can go much smaller on the main text. The further away your readers are, the larger the text will have to be.

From a yard or so away, you may want to increase the text size to 16 pt. If the display area is roped off, or otherwise inaccessible to your readers, you may follow the size and recommended viewing distance guidelines in the chart above. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. When creating and designing custom labels online , which is what we do here at LabelValue, the standard unit of measurement for text is the point pt.

If you're not a graphic artist, you're probably most familiar with point size from your high school or college days. Most instructors gave writing assignments with the following instructions: 5 pages, double space, 12pt.

Point size is great for keeping consistency across documents at school, your website or in your business, but converting points to inches or millimeters is something many small business owners and employees have to try and figure out on a daily basis in order to meet industry regulations.

We often get customers designing labels on our custom label tool who have strict guidelines they need to meet. Unfortunately, choosing font size is equal parts art and science, and it can get a little confusing. Fixed-Height Font Measurements. When measuring fonts in inches, you are measuring the fixed height of the font.