[Scribus] ISO page sizes

[Gregory Pittman]

Gregory Pittman wrote:

> Gregory Pittman wrote:
>
>> I would think that points came about as part of an effort to have a 
>> unit small enough to measure useful font sizes in whole numbers.
>
>
> It's always good to be able to respond to your own emails with better 
> information.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_unit -- 
> some tidbits follow.
>
> Well, Louis Desjardins will be interested to learn that the whole 
> concept and execution of points in typography is quite French -- 
> Fran?ois-Ambroise Didot came up with this in about 1783 as a 
> modification of an idea by Pierre Simon Fournier.  Didot's 
> modification based the measurement on the standard French Royal inch, 
> or pouce (Fournier was a little less precise).
>
> The American Point System came about in 1886, but was based on the 
> original idea of Fournier -- 1/6 of an inch (American) is a pica, 1/12 
> of a pica is a point. Or at least conceptually.  Then, as now, Big 
> Business will have its say, and some influential type foundries had 
> their own ideas and therefore it was decided that 83 picas = 35 mm 
> (how do you like the math of that?).

Excuse me, 83 picas  = 35 cm (sorry)

Greg