Going Metric

[Mechanic]

Well I'm finally going to have to bight the bullet and go metric for typesetting. For years since the metric system was adopted in Australia I have managed to avoid metres and centimetres and still think in yards, feet and inches.

I had managed to hang onto most of the tools I had acquired when I was working as a mechanic, but somewhere along the way my one inch micrometre went astray.

I logged onto the internet and looked for a one inch micrometre and found an internet store in Brisbane advertising a 1" (2.54cm) micrometre. I thought good, a dual system, I can cope with that. The price was right so I placed an order.  Of course, when it arrived the only thing it has in common with inches is that it measures up to 2.54cm.

OK I know that type high is 0.918" a quick conversion tells me that is 23.2664mm, a not so easy number to remember, particularly the way my memory is. I haven't yet attempted to convert pica point sizes to metric. I'll do that as I need them.

"Such is life!" as Ned Kelly, a famous Australian bushranger, was reported to have said, just before he was hanged.

[Dave Hughes]

When I started primary school, here in the UK, in 1965 we were taught nothing but the metric system, even though it did not seem to be used anywhere outside academia.

Ten years or so later, attending college to learn "Printing Surface Production (Letter Assembly)" as it was then called, everything was done in inches!