Text Attributs between FCPX and Premiere calculation

I think this has been asked a few times already all over the internet!

Does anybody know what the ratio of the text attributes is between FCPX and Premiere Pro?
The issue we have is that we receive a lot, actually, all of them of Creative Design Guides that were generated in Adobe.

For example, if I was told the text is 100px and the character distance or tracking is -10 plus the line spacing is + to the text size. What would this be in FCPX?

Is that a pixel spec for the text size? This wouldn't make any sense unless your guides were tied to a specific resolution. My hunch is that your guides were created in Photoshop, and even then you'd have to confirm what they mean... is it 100px in relationship to a 1080p frame? To a 4K frame?

Both Premiere and FCPX use some kind of points scale for their fonts, and neither use pixels. But Premiere's sizes are absolute while FCPX is proportional to the frame. FCPX tracking is in percentage, while I'm not sure what leading and kerning are in relationship to an em (1/1000 of an em?).

You will have to:
1) Find out what 100px means in relationship to what resolution frame size.
2) Create a mock-up in Photoshop if indeed that was what your guides were created in.
3) Bring that mock-up in FCPX, and overlay a text layer on top so that you can match it. Record your settings, and you should be good to go.

An alternative, and actually what I recommend, is to do all your text layouts in Photoshop and bring them in as PSDs into FCPX. I actually know a lot of people that prefer to do their text layouts in Photoshop, and I often do that if the need arises. This is really useful if you have a layered PSD, because FCPX will read the layers and you'll be able to animate and control each layer separately.

In FCPX you can set the "Inspector Units" to either Pixel or Percentage.
If you use Pixel a 100 px size is a 100 px size.
Tracking and linespace will different between PPro and FCPX.
But PS is also different to PPro

Inspector Units doesn't effect fonts, though. I assumed FCPX is using some standardized font point size. But, it's not print, so, what unit of measure is being used?

FCPX.guru wrote: Inspector Units doesn't effect fonts, though. I assumed FCPX is using some standardized font point size. But, it's not print, so, what unit of measure is being used?

Maybe you mixed "capital height" with font size.
Anyway 100 px in Premiere are the same in FCPX.

Hi guys, I did some testing for my own edification, and there's good and bad news for the OP.

The good news is that most likely, the font size will be the same size in Photoshop, FCPX, and Premiere IF YOUR FRAME SIZE IS 1080p. As expected, FCPX and Premiere don't use pixel size for fonts, but as I noted earlier, FCPX is proportional to the frame size, while Premiere is absolute. Now, the way FCPX does it is a lot better, because if you change your resolution on your project, all movements and sizes on everything carries over.

If you're at 1080p, set up your frame in Photoshop also at 1080p, 72ppi and you should be good (ppi is really meaningless in video, but you have to set it to 72 in Photoshop if you want to match sizes). The ONLY time a 100px font size matches 100pts, is when you're at 1080p.

Now, the bad news is that there's no consistency whatsoever with kerning, tracking, and leading. In fact, as Andreas noted, kerning, tracking, and leading are DIFFERENT between Photoshop and Premiere! Weirdly, if tracking is at 0 in Premiere and FCPX, they will match. But the 0 setting in Photoshop is different. Additionally, the scales are different between all three apps.

So, my recommendations don't really change. You'll have to determine if those design guidelines were made in Photoshop or not, and just use Photoshop for your layout if they are. Otherwise, you can manually find these settings in FCPX by overlaying and matching what the correct look should be.

Andreas Kiel wrote:

FCPX.guru wrote: Inspector Units doesn't effect fonts, though. I assumed FCPX is using some standardized font point size. But, it's not print, so, what unit of measure is being used?

Maybe you mixed "capital height" with font size.
Anyway 100 px in Premiere are the same in FCPX.

What I'm saying is, that preference setting has zero effect on font size. It reads the same no matter what that preference is set to. Setting to percentage or pixels, the font size still displays the same unit of measurement, it's neither. It doesn't change all Inspector controls, only some.

haysoos123 wrote: … you can manually find these settings in FCPX by overlaying and matching what the correct look should be.

LOVE this suggestion, very hands-on!

Learned all this typography stuff way beyond the rise of DTP ("Grandpa, what is that??"), terms like line, pica or point are defined absolute (=0.353mm), whereas 'pixel' is just a divisor - why 'dpi'=per inch is meaningless in video making (it's 2073600 'dots' - on 5" or 150")… except your findings, haysoos.

entering speculation area:
I assume, Apple has a more 'flat' approach, rounding those odd analogue Print units … precision on the third digit behind the comma creates only moire, flicker, etc....