lettergroottes

Lettergroottes, or letter sizes, describe the height of letters used in typography and printing. Traditionally these sizes were expressed in points and often referenced by named forms rather than numeric values. Common historic sizes include nonpareil (about 6 pt), minion (7 pt), brevier (8 pt), bourgeois (9 pt), long primer (10 pt), small pica (11 pt), and pica (12 pt). Larger display sizes were used for headlines, such as Great Primer (about 18 pt) and Paragon (about 20 pt). In metal type, each named size corresponded to a fixed physical height of the type sorts.

In practice a point is a unit of measure equal to 1/72 of an inch, and a pica equals 12 points. Consequently, there are 72 points per inch. This system allowed printers to communicate the intended visual size of text across presses and papier, providing a shared reference for layout and readability. The transition to digital typesetting preserved the point as a standard unit, even as fonts became scalable and sizes could be set with much finer granularity.

Today the term lettergrottes remains part of Dutch typographic vocabulary, referring to the same concept in a modern context. In digital typography, font sizes are selected for readability and aesthetics rather than fixed metal sizes. Body text in print typically falls within a range around the traditional 9 to 12 pt, while on screens sizes are expressed in points, pixels, or relative units. The idea of distinct sizes for body text, captions, and display text continues to underpin typographic practice.