Word font size difference between Times New Roman and Arial

[Straton]

There seems to be a significant difference between the actual character size
of Times New Roman characters and Arial characters when they are both set to
the same font "size" (e.g. 12 pt.) My understanding of "points" is that they
fix the actual size of a character, so why does the size change when I change
font face?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Font size is determined by the distance from the bottom of descenders to the
top of ascenders. Some fonts have a larger "x-height," which is the height
of the lowercase letters (not counting ascenders and descenders), making
them appear larger (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Font_metrics
and http://www.fonts.com/AboutFonts/Articles/fyti/TypeSizes.htm)

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org