To keep from getting lost, bookmark this page now. The information for this lesson is found in a whole series of previous tutorials on this site. You can come back to this page if you get 'lost' in the many pages and supplemental materials covering size and measurements.

Auxillary Materials: Size Matters: Measuring Type, Paper, and Images
This multiple page complex covers the following topics:

• Metric Measurements
• Type Size,
• Using Picas in Page Layout
• Paper Size
• Image Size (measures of resolution)

In addition to the main coverage of each topic you'll find that many pages have a Glossary section with related terms, or How-to pages related to that topic. These are important supplemental information. Review them. There are also offsite links to information elsewhere on the Web that will give you more in-depth information on some topics as needed.

If you get lost, come back to this page to resume the Graphic Design Basics Course

After you've studied the auxillary materials, do the following exercises. Take your time. These exercises are important to your future in graphic design and desktop publishing.

Hands-On Exercises

• Assemble a wide variety of the various ISO Standard, Metricated Traditional, or Nonmetric Traditional (North American) size items as you can - including envelopes and postcards. Arrange them in order by size.

• Assemble a collection of pieces with a finished size that does not conform to the standard or traditional paper sizes.

• Find examples of different paper weights — from the thickest, heaviest cardstock to the thinnest, most lightweight papers. See how many different paper thicknesses you can find for similar items such as a variety of business cards on thick and thin stock.

• Open your favorite page layout, graphics, and word processing programs and familiarize yourself with the different measurement systems available and the standard or default page sizes provided in the document or page setup or image size areas of each program. How many familiar and unfamiliar measurement systems does each program include? What are the largest and smallest page (or image) dimensions that you can create with each program?

• If you haven't tried it already, do both of the Picas & Points exercises found in the Using Picas in Page Layout article within the auxilliary material.

• Using your own software or the online conversion tools links found in the Conversion Tools feature, input the measurements for the standard 'letter' size of paper used in your country and convert the width and the height to inches or millimeters and to picas and points.

• Open your favorite page layout, graphics, and word processing programs and familiarize yourself with the different ways that each program specifies type size. What is the largest and smallest type size and the incremental sizes that are defaults for the program. See if your software allows you to specify larger or smaller sizes or other incremental sizes (such as 4.5 or 12.2 or 215).

• Using the Setting Leading in Your Software feature as a guide, open your favorite page layout, graphics, and word processing programs and experiment with the different methods they each use to specify leading (line spacing - size of the space between lines of type). How does each program differ? What is the default? Is there more than one way to set leading (such as by pulldown menus, control palettes, and keyboard shortcuts).

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