Inches to Points (in to pt)

1 inch equals 72 points exactly.

1 inch = 72 points

How to convert inches to points

To convert inches to points, multiply the number of inches by 72. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply points by 0.01388888889 (rounded).

points = inches × 72

Example: 10 inches = 720 points.

About these units

Inch (in)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

1/12 of a foot. Defined as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959, when the US and Commonwealth countries agreed a common international inch.

Latin uncia, meaning one-twelfth, is the root of both inch and ounce, and it passed into Old English as ynce. Roman measurers divided their foot into twelve unciae, and the English inch kept that twelfth. After 1066 an inch was reckoned as three barleycorns, and a 1324 statute attributed to Edward II spelled out the definition as three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise. For centuries the inch was simply a twelfth of a foot, or a thirty-sixth of a yard, and the US and UK each kept their own copy of the standard yard.

Those copies differed slightly until the 1959 international agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the inch exactly 25.4 millimeters. The US adopted it in 1959 and the UK ratified it in 1963, effective 1964. Today the inch is still the customary unit in the United States and Canada, and the UK keeps it on road signs. Worldwide it also names display diagonals, wheel rims, tire codes and pipe sizes.

1 inch = 0.0254 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Inch; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Point (pt)

Typography & screenCurrent unit

1/72 of an inch (0.3528 mm). The desktop-publishing point used by PostScript and CSS.

Printers have used a point since at least 1517, when Francesco Torniello da Novara in Milan set it at one ninth of a letter's height. Later systems differed: Fournier in 1737 used about 0.345 mm, Didot in 1783 about 0.376 mm, and the American point approved by type founders in 1886 about 0.3515 mm. TeX uses 1/72.27 inch, or 0.35146 mm, and a metric point of 0.250 mm was set by standards bodies in 1999.

The figure used here is the desktop publishing point of exactly 1/72 inch, 0.3528 mm. Xerox Interpress used it, and Adobe PostScript carried it on. W3C adopted it in 1996 for CSS, where 12 pt equals 16 px because a pixel is assumed to be 1/96 inch. NIST lists the computer point as an exact conversion. This point is about 0.4 percent longer than the TeX point. Font sizes refer to the em square rather than the printed letters.

1 point = 0.0003527777778 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Point (typography); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8

Related conversions

See all length units.