Why Microsoft 365 Fonts Differ in Size at the Same Point Size

Look at the height of the lowercase letters (the x-height). Fonts with a taller x-height, such as Tahoma or Verdana, will generally appear larger than fonts with smaller x-heights, like Garamond.

Check the horizontal space each character occupies. Condensed fonts like Arial Narrow are designed to take up less width, making the overall text block appear much smaller at the same point size.

Note the thickness of the font's strokes. Heavy, bold fonts like Impact and Arial Black have thick strokes that make the characters look dominant and larger compared to standard or light fonts.

Open your Word document and type a standard sentence, such as 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.'

Highlight the sentence, copy it, and paste it onto 3 or 4 separate lines below the original.

Select each line individually and use the Font dropdown in the Home ribbon to apply different fonts (e.g., Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, Impact) while keeping the point size identical across all lines.

Review the lines side-by-side to see how the character height, width, and spacing impact the readability and physical space the text occupies on the page.