Undocumented function to determine em-width of font in points (or mm)
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg118705] Undocumented function to determine em-width of font in points (or mm)
- From: Luci Ellis <luci at verbeia.com>
- Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 07:36:19 -0400 (EDT)
Dear all I vaguely remember that there is an undocumented function for extracting the length of an em in the current font, and expressing it in printers points, but I can't remember what it was. My problem is I need to create a graphics output that is a guaranteed absolute width in points (or mm). Each row in the grid needs to take its natural height, which GraphicsGrid or GraphicsColumn does not do (it creates equal-height rows). So I need to use Grid. But unlike GraphicsGrid, which uses points in the ImageSize option, Grid uses ems in the ItemSize option. I have a standard font so I should be able to map the font em to absolute units like points or mm, if only I can extract that em length in absolute units. Does anyone either remember the name of the undocumented function, or have another suggestion on how to do this? I am trying to write some functions to output various grids of plots, with titles and footnotes over the whole grid of plots. The formatting requirements of my employer are very, very precise. I can replicate the one-panel graphs pixel-for-pixel, but not when there is a grid of plots under the same title. Thanks in advance, Luci