font point to inch conversion different than usual typographic conventions?
Submitted by on Saturday, 23 July, 2011 - 17:22
Hi,
I would like to set my printing font size and length of line (buffer options>wrap margin># characters) so that what I see on the screen is as it will be printed given the print margins I have set. So, I have a 6.5" wide print area (8.5" minus 2*1" margin) and found out that 9 point font should be 0.1245" width for each character (or 3.1627 mm). I then divided 6.5 by 0.1245 hoping to find how wide in characters my wrap margin should be set. The floor of this number is 52. Experimenting found this to be very wrong. I then held a ruler up to a page printed from jEdit using 9 point type and the character width is right around 2 mm. I could experiment around and find a margin that will work, but it would be nice to know the actual width of a point in inches or millimeters within jEdit (that way it is a bit quicker for future projects and more elegant). I suppose I could just dig out some calipers
So, am I being a total dunce here and missing the obvious or is 9 point font in jEdit not the same as usual? I thought perhaps the point system used was the Didot, truchet, postscript, or some other version, but none of these seem close (truchet makes the line too long on screen and the others too short).
Thanks,
Seth
I would like to set my printing font size and length of line (buffer options>wrap margin># characters) so that what I see on the screen is as it will be printed given the print margins I have set. So, I have a 6.5" wide print area (8.5" minus 2*1" margin) and found out that 9 point font should be 0.1245" width for each character (or 3.1627 mm). I then divided 6.5 by 0.1245 hoping to find how wide in characters my wrap margin should be set. The floor of this number is 52. Experimenting found this to be very wrong. I then held a ruler up to a page printed from jEdit using 9 point type and the character width is right around 2 mm. I could experiment around and find a margin that will work, but it would be nice to know the actual width of a point in inches or millimeters within jEdit (that way it is a bit quicker for future projects and more elegant). I suppose I could just dig out some calipers
So, am I being a total dunce here and missing the obvious or is 9 point font in jEdit not the same as usual? I thought perhaps the point system used was the Didot, truchet, postscript, or some other version, but none of these seem close (truchet makes the line too long on screen and the others too short).
Thanks,
Seth
