Gregory Pittman wrote: > Gregory Pittman wrote: > >> I would think that points came about as part of an effort to have a >> unit small enough to measure useful font sizes in whole numbers. > > > It's always good to be able to respond to your own emails with better > information. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_unit -- > some tidbits follow. > > Well, Louis Desjardins will be interested to learn that the whole > concept and execution of points in typography is quite French -- > Fran?ois-Ambroise Didot came up with this in about 1783 as a > modification of an idea by Pierre Simon Fournier. Didot's > modification based the measurement on the standard French Royal inch, > or pouce (Fournier was a little less precise). > > The American Point System came about in 1886, but was based on the > original idea of Fournier -- 1/6 of an inch (American) is a pica, 1/12 > of a pica is a point. Or at least conceptually. Then, as now, Big > Business will have its say, and some influential type foundries had > their own ideas and therefore it was decided that 83 picas = 35 mm > (how do you like the math of that?).
Excuse me, 83 picas = 35 cm (sorry) Greg
