One of the key skills in page layout is the ability to measure type. Type measurement is about points and picas. A point is the basic unit of typographic measurement. How large is a point? Well, 72 points equals 1 inch (2.5 centimeters), so a single point measures 1⁄72 inch (0.0353 centimeters). To demonstrate how small one point is, here’s a line that’s one point thick:

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A pica is twelve points or 1⁄6 inch (0.415 centimeters). Picas are also called ems. The line shown below is 1 pica in length:

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There are 6 picas to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters).

To obtain the vertical size of type, designers generally measure in points. To obtain the horizontal length of a line or block of type, they measure in picas (Figure 17).

There are also times when designers must convert inches to picas or their metric equivalents. For example, the dimensions of paper are usually given in inches (or in metric figures). If you use picas to determine the margins of your page, you may find it useful to convert those picas to inches (or centimeters). These measurements and conversions can seem confusing at first, but actually they’re quite easy to understand.

Suppose that you’re designing the layout for this series of study units. You chose to place one column of text on each page, but you don’t want that column to stretch from one side of the page to the other. So, instead of a 6-inch (15-centimeter) column, you chose a 4 1⁄2-inch (11.25-centimeter) column. How many points and picas does this column width equal?

Hint: Since there are 6 picas to an inch, multiply 4 1⁄2 (4.5) by 6 to get the equivalent column width in picas.

	Created by ren -_- about 3 years ago

Career Diploma Computer Graphic Art Slide Set on Type Measurement, created by ren -_- on 08/02/2021.