Thread: Lines per inch
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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
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Default Lines per inch

krowlan wrote:
How can I translate pt into lines per inch


It isn't necessarily simple.

For most fonts, Word adds about 20% to the "nominal" point size of the font
for the space between the lines (called "leading"). So the space between
baselines is 12 points for 10 pt text in single-spaced Times New Roman,
Arial, Tahoma, and similar fonts. The space between baselines for 12 pt text
is 14 points, and so forth.

One inch is 72 points. So you can divide the baseline spacing into 72 to get
the number of lines per inch: 10 pt type will be 72/12 = 6 lines per inch,
while 12 pt type will be 72/14 = 5.1 lines per inch (approximately).

Exceptions:
The 20% rule doesn't necessarily hold for "headline" or "display" fonts such
as Algerian. If the text contains occasional larger characters, super- or
subscript characters, inline graphics or the like, the line spacing will
expand to accommodate them unless the paragraph formatting is set to an
exact line spacing. Double or triple spacing (or other multiples) will alter
the formula accordingly. Paragraph formatting of Space Before or Space After
must be taken into account. It's rarely used, but it's possible to have Word
do vertical justification.

Read http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/BottomLine.htm for more info.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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