---
name: Point size
slug: point-size
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: The nominal size of type, measured in points, which describes the
  body the letters are drawn on rather than the height of any letter.
aliases:
  - name: font size
  - name: type size
  - name: pt
    source: css
tags:
  - editorial
  - fonts
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - density-independent-pixel
    - em-unit
    - optical-size
    - x-height
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: Point size (Monotype glossary)
    url: https://www.monotype.com/resources/typographic-terms
  - title: Point size (Practical Typography)
    url: https://practicaltypography.com/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: explaining why 16pt in two fonts looks different
---

A point is a seventy-second of an inch, and the point size of type is the height
of the body the letters are drawn on, not the height of anything you can see.
The specimen above draws that body as a box: the box is exactly as tall as the
number says, the capitals stop short of the top, the lowercase stops well short
of that, and the descenders hang below the line. Change the number and the box
changes by exactly that much. Everything inside it changes by whatever
proportion the type designer chose.

That is a direct inheritance from metal. A foundry cast each size on a physical
rectangle of lead, and the point size was the height of that rectangle, which
had to hold the tallest ascender and the deepest descender of the design with a
little clearance. How much of the block the letters actually filled was the
punchcutter's call, so two faces cast on a 12 point body could look very
different sizes on the page. Nothing about that changed when type went digital:
the block became the [em](/em-unit), the em is exactly the font size, and the
[x-height](/x-height) and [cap height](/cap-height) inside it are still the
designer's decision. This is the whole answer to why the same number in two
faces does not look like the same size, and why substituting a
[fallback font](/fallback-font) at a matching point size can still change a
layout.

On the web you rarely type `pt` at all. CSS defines it as an absolute unit,
exactly `1.3333px`, which makes it a clumsy way of saying something `rem` says
better, and print stylesheets are about the only place it still earns its keep.
The word survives everywhere else because the vocabulary did: designers hand
over specs in points, native platform documentation talks in points, and Apple's
"points" are a display unit rather than a typographic one, which is a collision
worth naming out loud before a handoff rather than after it.
[Leading](/leading) is quoted in the same currency, historically as a pair such
as 10 on 12, and a [drop cap](/drop-cap) is one of the few things sized in lines
rather than in points.

The practical consequence is to stop trusting the number on its own. Two faces
that need to look equally large will usually need different point sizes, matched
by eye on their x-heights rather than by their nominal size, which is exactly
what a designer is doing when they bump a substituted face up a point. And
because the reader can override your sizes and should be able to, set body text
in a relative unit and let [resizing text](/resize-text) work rather than nailing
a point size to the page.