Text editors, on the other hand, do not have margins. They simply place text within the borders of the terminal being used. To exchange information between word processors and text editors without distorting the original text layout, something equivalent to line length must be specified for text prepared with a word processor and, conversely, something equivalent to margins must be specified for text prepared with a text editor. Text editors have no provisions for setting margins directly, but they do provide a way for setting the line length, which is equivalent to setting margins on a word processor. In a word processor, the equivalent of setting the line length is setting the margins to allow only a desired number of characters to fit across the page.
Line length depends on the margin settings and the font used.
To ensure compatibility between word processors and text editors, users of word processors should only use non-proportional fonts. The most common of these, Courier, is available on most word processors. Because the width of each character in Courier font is the same, the length of any line can always be predicted. Word processors usually identify fonts by their point size. The pitch number determines the number of characters per inch.