The Point System. The type manufacturers of this country have adopted a uniform scale of sizes known as the point system. In this scheme, the unit or point is .0138 inches, or about one seventy-second part of an inch. The size of any type is so many points based upon this system. Twelve points constitute an em pica which is the larger unit of measurement.
When the printer speaks of dimensions, like the length and width of a page, he says it is a certain number of ems or picas long and wide. An em pica is one-sixth of an inch; so a page three inches by five inches is eighteen by thirty ems pica.
Until comparatively recent years there was no definite standard of type sizes. Each foundry established its own standards. If a printer wished to use type from different foundries, it probably was necessary to make some troublesome adjustments with bits of paper or otherwise to get them to line properly. (Specimen of words out of line.)
There was a sufficient similarity in sizes of type to justify the use of names to indicate certain sizes. The names used to designate the common sizes from 4½ to 12 point type according to the point system, are as follows:
| 4½ | points—Diamond |
| 5 | points—Pearl |
| 5½ | points—Agate |
| 6 | points—Nonpareil |
| 7 | points—Minion |
| 8 | points—Brevier |
| 9 | points—Bourgeois |
| 10 | points—Long Primer |
| 11 | points—Small pica |
| 12 | points—Pica |
1. This line is set in 6 point Caslon Bold.
2. This line is set in 8 point Post.
3. This line is set in 10 point Author’s Roman Italic.
4. This line is set in 12 point Strathmore Old Style.
Some of these names, such as Nonpareil, Brevier, Long Primer, and Pica, are still in quite general use.