Pixels Per Inch

What Does Pixels Per Inch Mean?

Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measurement used to define the resolution of a computer display. This metric evaluates the picture/image quality that a particular computing or output display device is able to display.

Techopedia Explains Pixels Per Inch

PPI has various implementations in different devices. It is entirely dependent on the display resolution capability of the display adapter. In computer display devices, PPI is calculated by dividing the diagonal resolution of the display device by its diagonal size in inches. For example, a display monitor with 12-inch width and 9-inch height has a PPI of 85 in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Higher resolution will result in more PPI. Similarly, the more the PPI the better the image views will be. This is true for both for computers and printing devices.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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