Typography Converter

Typography mixes physical and digital units, which is exactly why people end up converting between them. The point anchors print: one point is 1/72 of an inch, so 72 points make an inch and 12 points make a pica. Those are fixed physical sizes. Pixels are not.

Key conversions:

• 1 point (pt) = 0.35278 mm (1/72 inch)
• 1 pica = 4.2333 mm (12 points)
• 1 inch = 25.4 mm
• 1 pixel (at 96 dpi) = 0.26458 mm (1/96 inch)
• 1 em (at 16 px) = 4.2333 mm

Common sizes:

• Body text: 12 pt (about 16 px)
• Headings: 18–24 pt
• Small print: 8–9 pt

A pixel only has a physical size once you fix a resolution. The classic web assumption is 96 dpi, which is what the numbers above use, but a print file at 300 dpi or a phone screen near 460 dpi makes a pixel mean something entirely different. That’s why a layout that looks right on screen can print tiny if you treat pixels as a fixed length.

The em is the odd one out, because it isn’t an absolute size at all. One em equals the current font size, so 1 em is 16 px when the base text is 16 px, and it scales as the text scales. That relative behavior is precisely why em and rem are the preferred units in responsive web design, where everything has to grow and shrink together.