Typography Converter
Enter a value to instantly convert between typography units.
Typography unit conversions matter for anyone working across print and digital design — converting points and picas (used in print and typesetting software) to pixels, ems, and rems (used in web design and CSS), or converting physical measurements like inches and millimeters to the typographic units a design program expects. Because typography units come from print history (points, picas) as well as digital design (pixels, em, rem), and because some of these units are *relative* rather than absolute, this is a category where understanding what a unit actually measures matters as much as the conversion factor itself.
1 Point = 0.0833 Pica
Key Formulas
Point → Pica
pc = pt × 0.0833333Point → Inch
in = pt × 0.0138889Pica → Inch
in = pc × 0.166667Popular Conversions
All Typography Conversions
About Typography Conversions
History & Background
The point, the basic unit of typographic measurement, originated in the printing industry centuries ago with several competing regional definitions before the 'desktop publishing point' (exactly 1/72 of an inch) was standardized with the rise of PostScript and digital typesetting in the 1980s — this is the definition used throughout modern design software. The pica, traditionally 12 points (1/6 inch), remains used for column widths and page layout measurements in print design. Pixels, by contrast, are a digital-only unit with no fixed physical size — a 'pixel' on a high-resolution phone screen is physically much smaller than a 'pixel' on an older monitor, which is part of why CSS introduced em and rem as *relative* units (based on font size) rather than absolute physical or device-pixel measurements, to keep designs proportional across devices.
How to Use This Converter
Select your starting and target typography units and enter a value for an instant conversion. Keep in mind that em and rem are *relative* units — 1 rem equals the root font size (commonly but not always 16px), and 1 em equals the current element's font size — so a conversion between rem/em and an absolute unit like px or pt depends on this base font size; the converter uses the common 16px default, but if your project uses a different root font size, the actual pixel equivalent will differ proportionally.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is a point defined as 1/72 of an inch?
This specific definition — the 'PostScript point' or 'desktop publishing point' — was chosen by Adobe in the 1980s because 72 divides evenly into common measurements and because it made the relationship between points and inches a clean fraction, simplifying calculations for digital typesetting. Older print traditions used slightly different point definitions (such as the 'Pica point,' close to but not exactly 1/72.27 inch), but the 72-points-per-inch definition is now the standard used in design software, PDFs, and this converter.
What's the difference between em and rem in CSS?
Both are relative units based on font size, but they reference different things: 1 em equals the font size of the *current element* (so em values can compound when nested), while 1 rem equals the font size of the *root element* (typically the <html> tag), regardless of nesting. This makes rem generally more predictable for consistent sizing across a page, while em can be useful for sizing that should scale relative to a specific element's own font size.
How many pixels is a point, and does it matter for screen design?
At the standard 96 DPI (dots per inch) used as a CSS reference, 1 point equals approximately 1.333 pixels (since 1 inch = 72 points = 96 pixels). However, on high-density ('Retina' or HiDPI) screens, the relationship between CSS pixels and physical device pixels changes — CSS pixels remain a consistent reference unit, but each CSS pixel may correspond to multiple physical pixels on the display, which is handled by the browser/OS rather than affecting the point-to-pixel conversion itself.