Editing Typographic unit (section)

== Metric units ==
{{main|Metric typographic units}}

The traditional typographic units are based either on non-metric units, or on odd multiples (such as <sup>35</sup>⁄<sub>83</sub>) of a metric unit. There are no specifically metric units for this particular purpose, although there is a DIN standard sometimes used in German publishing, which measures type sizes in multiples of 0.25&nbsp;mm, and proponents of the metrication of typography generally recommend the use of the millimetre for typographical measurements, rather than the development of new specifically typographical metric units. The Japanese already do this for their own characters (using the ''kyu'', which is ''q'' in romanized Japanese and is also 0.25&nbsp;mm), and have metric-sized type for European languages as well. One advantage of the q is that it reintroduces the proportional integer division of 3&nbsp;mm (12&nbsp;q) by 6 & 4.

During the age of the French Revolution or Napoleonic Empire, the French established a typographic unit of 0.4&nbsp;mm, but except for the government's print shops, this did not catch on.

In 1973, the ''didot'' was restandardized in the [[European Union|EU]] as 0.375 (= <sup>3</sup>⁄<sub>8</sub>)&nbsp;mm.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} Care must be taken because the name of the unit is often left unmodified. The Germans, however, use the terms Fournier-Punkt and Didot-Punkt for the earlier ones, and Typografischer Punkt for this metric one. The TeX typesetting system uses the abbreviation dd for the earlier definition, and nd for the metric ''new didot''<ref name="LaTeX/Length"/>