The height of the face of the type, which in letterpress terms is the depth of the body of the type. Originally, this was the height of the face of the metal block on which each individual letter was cast. The distance from the top of the highest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender is measured in points. Book/newspaper text is normally 8 to 10 point or subheadings/intros may be 12 to 18 point; headings may be 20 to 36 point; footnotes/captions/credits may be 6 to 7 point. As you might then assume, typefaces set at the same point size may well appear very different given that ascender & descender lengths vary greatly from typeface to typeface.