# Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure DevFeed: [Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Hillel Wayne Published: 2026-05-13T15:56:37Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Newsletter feed for Hillel Wayne's Newsletter]() Topics: [LaTeX](), [TeX]() Tags: [articles](), [latex](), [technology]() ## AI overview The author investigates why a 10.8pt x 7.2pt grid differs between LaTeX and Inkscape. The article explains that point definitions varied historically and that TeX uses a slightly different point size from the official printer's point. ## Source excerpt I'm in the middle of redoing the Logic for Programmers diagrams and this has surfaced a really annoying problem. The book is formatted in LaTeX using a pseudo-grid of 10.8pt x 7.2pt. The diagrams are done in Inkscape using a 10.8pt x 7.2pt. Last week I found out that these are not the same points. Latex defines a point as 1/72.27 inches (0.3515 millimeters). Inkscape instead uses 1/72 inches (0.3528 mm). It's only a difference of 0.4% but it still floors me that two widespread digital technologies would be different! So, uh, what happened? A few hours of reading articles later, this is what I found, caveat that I didn't spend all that much time researching this and this is only initial impressions. what even is a point A point is a typographic measure, coming from 1517, that is supposedly the smallest interesting size for a printer. This was notably not a standardized measure- different companies in times used different point sizes depending on their equipment. Over time it was standardized, but each country picked a different standard: the German and Japanese point is 0.250 mm, the French point is allegedly 0.399 mm, etc. But early computer history is super Americentric so that's what technology uses. In the US, they standardized the point around the end of the 19th century. To what? I dunno. This source from 1900 gives the length of a point as 35/996 cm (72.281 points/in) and then says there are exactly 867.4699 "ems per foot" (72.289 points/in). This source from 1916 says the standard pica (12 points) is 0.16604 inches and that there are 72.272 "pica ems per foot". Which conveniently enough gives us 72.272 points/in (a pica being 12 points). Then on the very next page they say no a pica is actually 0.166044 inches and a point is exactly 0.013837 inches. I found other sources with other definitions, too. I'm going to chalk the differences up to a mix of "the definitions of 'meter' and 'foot' changed over time" and "these are less than a micron apart so who gives a