It was somewhat larger than today's PostScript or DTP point, which measures 0.353 mm, at 0.375 mm. So, if you input a font size of 10 pt in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, you specify a font size of 3.53 mm. This is equivalent to a point size of 72 on the now-defunct Pica standard used by many European printers from the 14th century to the early 20th century. These days, 1 point equals 2.54 mm, so 10 points would be 27.5 mm. But that was quite large back then! According to The Typographic Guide by Frederick Rudolph (Addison-Wesley, 1968), 10 points was not an uncommon size for headline type during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It was also popular in books printed between about 1550 and 1700. After 1700, type began to get smaller and smaller until it reached today's standards with sans serif faces coming out around the 1920s. Here are some sample text files with different point sizes: 10pt Text File This text file contains only the character "a". There is no line break after the word "Text" and before the decimal point. The character "a" has been set using the Helvetica Neue font which has a font size of 10 points.