Unit system: Typography
What is the Point?
The point is a unit of length in the field of typography and uses the symbol pt.
On computers (Word, Google Docs, design software and the web) a point is exactly 1/72 of an inch, or about 0.3528 mm. That is the point used for font sizes, so 12 pt text is about 4.2 mm tall. Older printing systems used slightly different points, such as the 0.3515 mm American printer’s point.
It is the smallest unit in the world of typography. There are 12 points in a pica.
In physical printing methods / press systems, the point size is the height of the metal press body on which the font's letters are made. When applied to the digital type space, letters are designed around a theoretical size, an em square which is scaled to the relative point size (when specified of course!).