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?

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

"Straton" <Straton@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message 
news:684A5C00-3068-4B92-9C9A-5D795330A82D@microsoft.com...
> 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?
>