About the Point to Percent Converter
Percentage font sizes still show up in email templates, CMS themes and rich text editors, often because those environments strip absolute units. If your source material is a print spec in points, you need a percentage that reproduces the same size against a known base, and that is what this page produces.
The calculation converts points to pixels at 1.3333 pixels per point, divides by the base font size, then multiplies by 100. With a 16 pixel base, 12pt lands on 100%, 15pt on 125% and 21pt on 175%. Change the base and everything rescales, which is useful when a template forces a different starting size.
One practical warning for email work. Percentage sizes inherit, and several mail clients inject their own wrapper styles, so a nested table cell can end up smaller than intended. Testing in the actual client is the only reliable check. For ordinary web pages, absolute point sizes are rarely a good idea because they ignore the reader browser settings, whereas a percentage keeps that flexibility. The Point to REM tool covers the root relative alternative.
How to use
- Enter the point sizes, one per line.
- Set Base font size to the size the percentage will resolve against.
- Copy the percentage values into your template.
- Test the result in the client or browser that will render it.
Common questions
- What is 12pt as a percentage?
- 100% against a 16 pixel base font size.
- Why would I use percent instead of points?
- Percentages scale with the reader font size preference, while a fixed point size ignores it.
- Do email clients handle percent font sizes?
- Most do, but wrapper styles and nested tables can compound the value, so test in the real client before sending.
- What base should I enter for a CMS theme?
- Inspect the element and use its computed parent font size, which is often 16 pixels but not always.