Length/Distance 

Convert from shaftment to point [Didot]

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Unit Definition (shaftment)
A shaftment, when used as a unit of length, is usually six inches or two palms, i.e. 15.24 cm (for the international inch). It is thought to be the distance from the tip of the outstretched thumb to the other side of the palm.In English this unit has mostly fallen out of use, as do others based on the human arm: digit (1/8 shaftment), finger (7/48 shaftment), palm (½ shaftment) hand (2/3 shaftment), span (1½ shaftments), cubit (3 shaftments) and ell (7½ shaftments).

Unit Definition (point [Didot])
The point is a unit of length used by typographers and printers. When printing was done from hand-set metal type, one point represented the smallest element of type that could be handled, roughly 1/64 inch. Eventually, the point was standardized in Britain and America as exactly 1/72.27 = 0.013 837 inch, which is about 0.35 mm (351.46 micrometers). In continental Europe, typographers traditionally used a slightly larger point of 0.014 83 inch (about 1/72 pouce, 0.377 mm, or roughly 1/67 English inch), called a Didot point after the French typographer Firmin Didot (1764-1836). In the U.S., Adobe software defines the point to be exactly 1/72 inch (0.013 888 9 inch or 0.352 777 8 millimeters), a unit sometimes called the big point (bp). The German standards agency DIN has proposed that all these units be replaced by multiples of 0.25 millimeters (1/101.6 inch).


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