Twips, pixels, and points, oh my!

Question

or "How I learned to stop worrying and learned to love measurement systems"

I wanted a central spot that I can refer to later to give me a quick low-down on various units of measurement used in programming. SO seemed the best place to put it, and while I could go ahead and answer the question myself, y'all are a much smarter bunch than I, so I might as well let you do it.

Please pick one unit that you're familiar with, use "#name" in the first line to give it as the heading (making it easy to find) and define it within your answer. Please do not duplicate - add comments or edit existing answers rather than adding a new answer. Similar units are still seperate - so please don't define em and en in the same answer. If a unit is exactly the same as another unit, add a line for "aliases" below the heading.

If it's a particularly obscure measurement type, please link to a second reference so people don't downvote you because they've never heard of it.

• Point
• Pica
• Twips
• Pixel
• Em
• En
• CPI
• DPI

I'm seeing a lot of downvoting - I suppose people believe this doesn't add value to StackOverflow's community. Please consider commenting below if you feel this doesn't add to the community, or if you think this is a bad question. I'm interested in improving it if you have any suggestions.

The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from!

-Adam

Answer 1

Pixel

One of the little colored squares on your screen.