Glossary for Geospatial Science

point size: The vertical size of a text font is expressed in points.� There are 72 points in an inch, so a 12-point font would be 12/72, or 1/6 of an inch tall, while a 36-point font would be 36/72, or 1/2 inch tall.� Of course the heights of different letters vary (�L� is taller than �e�).� The point size refers to the distance between the highest ascender in a font�s character encoding scheme (the part above the line in a letter like �l� or �b�), and the lowest descender in the set (the part below the line in a letter like �g� or �y�).� (See also: bitmapped font, outline font)