point

1. unit, text (Sometimes abbreviated "pt") The unit of

length for text characters. There are six slightly

different definitions: Truchet point, Didot point, ATApoint, TeX point, Postscript point, and IN point.

The most commonly used are ATA in the USA and Didot in Europe.

A twip is 1/20 of a PostScript[?] point.

Different point systems.

(2002-03-10)

2. hardware To move a pointing device so that the

on-screen pointer is positioned over a certain object on the

screen such as a button in a graphical user interface. In

most window systems it is then necessary to click a

(physical) button on the pointing device to activate or select

the object. In some systems, just pointing to an object is

known as "mouse-over" event which may cause some help text

(called a "tool tip" in Windows) to be displayed.

(2001-05-21)