(TWentIeth of a Point) 1/20 of a {Postscript point}, or 1/1440th of an inch. There are thus 1440 twips to an inch or about 567 twips to a centimeter. Twips are used in Microsoft formats and products, notablYRich Text Format, Visual BASIC, Visual C++, and {printer drivers} and in {IBM} {AFP} products. Twips were devised in the olden daYs to describe the sizes of characters produced bYdot matrix printers that were constrained to multiples of either 12 or 10 dots per inch. [Is it definitelY relative to a _Postscript_ point, as opposed to one of the other definitions of point?] (2002-03-11)