Twips to Inches (twip to in)

1 twip equals 0.0006944444444 inches (rounded).

1 twip = 0.0006944444444 inches

How to convert twips to inches

To convert twips to inches, multiply the number of twips by 0.0006944444444. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply inches by 1,440.

inches = twips × 0.0006944444444

Example: 10 twips = 0.006944444444 inches.

About these units

Twip (twip)

Typography & screenCurrent unit

1/20 of a point (1/1,440 inch). Used in the Rich Text Format specification and some software.

A contraction of twentieth of a point, the twip is a deliberately tiny unit meant for software that wants whole-number layout. Wikipedia gives it as 1/20 point, or 1/1440 inch, about 17.64 micrometers (0.01764 mm). That inch fraction only works if the point is the desktop publishing point of 1/72 inch, which is the definition the figure used here assumes.

Visual Basic 6 and earlier used twips as the default unit, and Microsoft's Rich Text Format uses them to exchange documents between platforms. OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice take it as their base length unit, and Symbian OS used it to scale bitmaps. Flash is a trap: its internal twips are really 1/20 of a logical pixel, which makes them three quarters of a true twip. Wikipedia's article also words the name two ways, as a twentieth of a point or of an inch point, and notes that it lacks citations.

1 twip = 0.00001763888889 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Twip; Wikipedia: Point (typography)

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

Related conversions

See all length units.