Pica (pc)

Typography & screenCurrent unit

12 points, or one sixth of an inch (4.2333 mm). A printing measure, used in layout software.

1 pica = 0.004233333333 meters (approximately).

About the pica

Anyone who sets column widths in a layout program meets the pica, a printing measure divided into 12 points. Its size has varied by country. The French cicero equals 12 Didot points, about 4.512 mm. The American pica set by type founders in 1886 is about 4.217 mm (0.16604 inch), and the TeX pica is 400/2409 inch.

The figure used here is the desktop publishing pica, exactly one sixth of an inch or about 4.233 mm, which equals 12 of the 1/72 inch points. NIST lists the computer pica as an exact conversion. Six picas make an inch, and CSS uses the abbreviation pc for it. Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress write measurements as picas and points, so 5p6 means five and a half picas. Designers also count characters per pica to fit text: 11 point Helvetica has about 2.4, so a 30 pica line holds roughly 72 characters. The Wikipedia article does not explain where the name came from.

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

Pica conversion chart

1 pica expressed in every other length unit:

More Typography & screen units

• point (length)
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