Convert Lines per inch to Dots per centimetre

Convert Lines per inch (lpi) to Dots per centimetre (dpcm) instantly and accurately.

Conversion Formula

dpcm = lpi × 0.3937007874

About Lines per inch

The line per inch (lpi) is the standard unit of halftone screen frequency in offset, flexographic, gravure, and screen printing. Each halftone cell varies in dot size to simulate grey tones; a 150 lpi screen on a 1200 DPI printer allocates 1200/150 = 8 printer dots per cell row, giving an 8×8 = 64-level grey matrix. Industry benchmarks: newsprint 85-100 lpi; magazines 133-175 lpi; fine-art offset 175-200 lpi; screen printing (textiles) 35-65 lpi. Rule of thumb: required DPI ≥ 1.5 × lpi for acceptable AM halftone; ≥ 2 × lpi for high quality - so 150 lpi offset needs at least 300 DPI raster data. As a dimensional quantity, 1 lpi = 1 PPI = 1 DPI; lpi designates screen frequency in print. 1 lpi = 1 PPI = 2.54 lpcm.

About Dots per centimetre

The dot per centimetre (dpcm) is the metric equivalent of DPI, defined as a CSS resolution unit in the W3C CSS Images Level 3 specification alongside dpi and dppx. A 96 DPI reference screen (CSS Media Queries Level 4 reference device) corresponds to 96/2.54 ≈ 37.795 dpcm. ITU-T T.4 (Group 3 facsimile, 1980) defines scan line density in metric units: standard resolution 3.85 lines/mm = 38.5 dpcm; fine resolution 7.7 lines/mm = 77 dpcm. ITU-T T.85 (JBIG compression) standardised these metric resolutions for cross-border interoperability. ISO 216 A4 scanned at 77 dpcm fine fax resolution yields 1617 pixels across page width. The CSS specification recommends dppx over dpcm for screen media queries, reserving dpcm for print stylesheets targeting metric-resolution printers. 1 dpcm = 2.54 DPI = 2.54 PPI exactly (since 1 in = 2.54 cm). 1 dpcm = 0.1 dot/mm.

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