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From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: looking for Amiga fonts
Message-ID: <2339@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Sep-87 13:37:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2339
Posted: Mon Sep 14 13:37:05 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Sep-87 06:31:27 EDT
References: <852@cadnetix.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 28

in article <852@cadnetix.UUCP>, childs@cadnetix.UUCP (David Childs) says:
> Keywords: fonts, rant and rave, long, gibberish.
> A 'Point' is an inch.  A pixel (dot on the screen) is 1/72 of an inch on
> a monitor with 72dpi.  A one 'point' font fits one character per inch.  An
> 8 point font fits 8 characters per inch.  His new branch of mathematics is
> called division.  Divide the number of PIXELS per inch by the number of
> PIXELS per character give the point size of the font.  Therefore, on a 72dpi
> monitor 8 is 9, 9 is 8, 10 is ~7.

No!  The previous poster was correct.  A point is a unit of measure for type,
equal to 1/72 of an inch, which is the same as 1/12 of a pica.  In respect
to proportional and kerned fonts, an "N-Point" font is a font in which the
"n" character measures "N" points long (it's been a number of years since my
last graphics course, but I recall the "n" character being used as the basis
character.  It's certainly not "i" or "l"...).  Thus, a 12 point font is larger
than an 8 point font, which is exactly what you'd expect.  By your definition,
a 12 point font would be smaller than an 8 point font.  And a poster font
might come out to be a 0.004 point font, or something on that order.  Most of
the Amiga font-point names are concerned with the height of the font, which is
really strange, since back when publishing meant hand-setting type, the width
of the characters was the main thing to be concerned about.

> David Childs  Cadnetix Corp.  (303) 444-8075
> "The Amiga held the people in awe, much the same as IBM PC's don't" - DWC
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
"The A2000 Guy"                    PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
     "God, I wish I was sailing again"	-Jimmy Buffett