Cookbook

The following are the units of measure used in Microsoft Word documents.

dxa

dxa states values in twentieths of a point (1/1440 of an inch).

This is the standard measuring unit in Word. Indentation, tables width and height and other elements' sizes are measured in twentieths of a point.

Half-points

Half-points are the main unit for font sizes. Its name is pretty self explanatory: you can calculate the value by multiplying by two the points. For example, a font of 15pt has a dimension of 30 half-points.

Fiftieths of a percent

This is a relative measurement unit. It is equal to the 50% of the total, available size (width, height…) of an element.

EMUs

"EMU" is the acronym for English Metric Unit. EMUs are equivalent to 1/360,000 of a centimeter, 1/914,400 inches or 1/12,700 points.

EMUs are the measuring unit for images. They were created in order to have a standard unit that could represent image dimensions with integer numbers, either with centimeters, inches or pixels, and so to avoid incorrect image displays due to sizes with fractional numbers, which may alter the accurate representation of an image.