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Thread: What exactly do the font sizes in Notepad mean?

  1. #1

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    What exactly do the font sizes in Notepad mean?

    I used VB6 to write a program to create a simple bitmap FNT file (older format font-file, that's relatively easy to code software to generate, and still works in Windows). Now this is a fixed-width bitmap font, and the height and width of the characters in this font are both 8 pixels (and this is clearly specified in the header of the FNT file). So I installed the font I created, and went to Notepad, and went to select my font, and I was shocked to find that the font size indicated for my font was 6, not 8. 6 is neither the width nor the height of the characters in my font. What's going on here?

    Is this numeber some kind of perceptual size? Like if it says 6 for font size, the characters will appear to a casual observer (who's not actually counting pixels) to be about 6 pixels high? If so, does the number that Windows software will report for my font size have something to do with the monitor that's currently connected to my PC? Like if I got a newer a monitor with higher pixel density, will my monitor report that to my computer as part of the signaling during power-on of the monitor, and then Windows will read that number and tell applications that number, which will then use that number to calculate the so called "font size" of my font, when displaying the font size in the font selection dialog box?
    Last edited by Ben321; Oct 4th, 2020 at 01:34 AM.

  2. #2
    PowerPoster PlausiblyDamp's Avatar
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    Re: What exactly do the font sizes in Notepad mean?

    I would imagine it is specifying the Font's Pont Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography) not the number of pixels.

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