Pat, Double-check those types sizes. I don't think I could read a book with 0.5 mm type.
I measured text in the Wall Street Journal and a few books. Normal body text seems to be about 1.4 mm lower case letters, 2 mm capitals. To include larger fonts in headlines, I would probably stick with millimeters and one decimal, but micrometers would work too. ________________________________ From: Pat Naughtin <pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Mon, June 21, 2010 3:43:38 AM Subject: [USMA:47886] Type size On 2010/06/21, at 07:48 , Pierre Abbat wrote: The *type size* in centimeters? That's too big a unit for measuring letters. > >Pierre > Dear Pierre, You're right, as a unit, centimetre is too big for type size – and so is millimetre. I think that the printing industry will eventually get over its dedication to old mediaeval names for type. Ciceros, didos, ems, ens, picas, and points (both the UK and USA versions) will eventually be replaced by a sane and simple metric system. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_unit to get a taste of the mess the printing industry is in! To measure letters this sanely and simply you could start with measuring the height of each letter in micrometres. As the text in books or newspapers tends to be about 500 micrometres this would have the advantage that all letter height descriptions would be in whole numbers and most of these (except for headlines or headings) would be less than 1000 micrometres. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/WholeNumberRule.pdf Lateral measures could also use the same idea with ems and ens specified in micrometres as well. I know that many will balk at the idea of a letter m as (say) 2600 micrometres wide because 'the number is too big'. However consider that you have just won 2600 in a lottery – is the number still too big? Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/ to subscribe.
