Twip
| twip | |
|---|---|
| Unit system | Typographic units |
| Unit of | Length |
| Conversions | |
| 1 twip in ... | ... is equal to ... |
| Typographic units | 1/20 points |
| Imperial/US units | 1/1440 in |
| Metric (SI) units | 17.64 μm |
A twip (abbreviating "twentieth of a point" or "twentieth of an inch point"[1]) is a typographical measurement, defined as 1⁄20 of a typographical point. One twip is 1⁄1440 inch, or 17.64 μm.[2]
In computing
Twips are screen-independent units to ensure that the proportion of screen elements are the same on all display systems. A twip is defined as being 1⁄1440 of an inch (approximately 17.64 μm).
A pixel is a screen-dependent unit, standing for 'picture element'. A pixel is a dot that represents the smallest graphical measurement on a screen. Twips are the default unit of measurement in Visual Basic (version 6 and earlier, prior to VB.NET). Converting between twips and screen pixels is achieved using the TwipsPerPixelX and TwipsPerPixelY properties[3] or the ScaleX and ScaleY methods.[4]
Twips can be used with Symbian OS bitmap images for automatic scaling from bitmap pixels to device pixels.[5] They are also used in Rich Text Format from Microsoft for platform-independent exchange and they are the base length unit in OpenOffice.org and its fork LibreOffice.
Flash internally specifies most sizes in units it calls twips, but which are really 1⁄20 of a logical pixel,[6] which is 3⁄4 of an actual twip.[7]
See also
- Himetric
- Thousandth of an inch – a 1⁄1000 of an inch, commonly called a thou /ˈθaʊ/ (used for both singular and plural) or, particularly in North America, a mil (plural mils).
References
- ^ The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing: http://foldoc.org/twip
- ^ "Word 2007: Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification, version 1.9.1". Microsoft Corporation. 19 March 2008. p. 8. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
- ^ "TwipsPerPixelX, TwipsPerPixelY Properties". docs.microsoft.com. 23 August 2006.
- ^ "ScaleX, ScaleY Methods". docs.microsoft.com. 23 August 2006.
- ^ Dueder, Janelle (December 20, 2020). "Blitting and bitmaps - Symbian OS C++". 25 Years of Programming.
- ^ "SWF FILE FORMAT SPECIFICATION" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-11-20.
- ^ Flash logical pixels are the same as HTML logical pixels, of which there are 96 to an inch, rather than 72
- Sparke, Gerard; Etherington, Stephen (2000). Visual Basic Programmers' Workbook. Pearson Education Australia. ISBN 978-1-74009-445-0.
- MSDN Library — com.ms.wfc.ui.CoordinateSystem.TWIP
- Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing — twip
- Foundation, ActionScript 3.0 Animation, Making Things Move! by Keith Peters ISBN 978-1-59059-791-0 (pbk)
- Converting between twips and pixels - Ruby code