Edmond,
FONTMETRIC() is for the screen display only. I think most people solve these kinds of problems by forcing fixed width fonts like Courier New.
>Let's say the font is Arial Normal 8 and FONTMETRIC(6), the average width, is 5 pixels. Leaving out TXTMETRIC() to make the example simple, let's say all of the characters in the string are "average".
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>How many "average" characters do I need to cover a printed inch? Would this depend on the printer's dpi resolution and, if so, how do you determine the selected printer's resolution? I'm confused because a FONTMETRIC(6) return of 5 pixels doesn't go into my laser printer's 300 dpi and come out with a real number of characters per inch.