TMG-L Archives

From: Frank Malaney <>
Subject: [TMG-L:] Re: TMG-L: Re: -printing from computer input
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 09:01:30 -0400
In-Reply-To: <007301bfb4b8$7d9bae00$d4e5fea9@billjohn>

At 11:41 PM 5/2/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Maybe so, but I think this is for 'typewritten' type text. Very, very few
>books, other than Large-Type books, are printed in anything near as large as
>12 point.

A number of years ago, I read an article in one of the PC Magazines on
fonts and their use. One of their points was that one of the factors that
determine the size of the font is the length of the line. The longer the
line length, the larger that the font should be. The rational behind this
suggestion is that with small fonts and long lines some people have problem
following the line across the width of the page. (I think we all realize
that with a smaller font, our finished book will have few pages in it and
will be cheaper to have printed.) Their suggestion for 8.5x11 page size was
to use an 11 point font. HOWEVER, after looking at a large number of
fonts, I notice that there is a wide variation in the actual size and
spacing of letters in these different fonts (The font point size was the
same for this comparison) . I would suggest you test any font (if you any
thing but Times Roman or one of its many variants) for readability. Just
prepare a short section of your book and ask a few people for their honest
opinion. Five or six pages should be adequate for such a test. You might
want to prepare two or three different combinations that you might consider
using for this test.

I would point out that few books are printed on a page as large as 8.5x11.
(Unless they are picture books or something like that.) Hence, readability
can be maintained with a point size much smaller than 12 point (or even 10
point). As an example, I found that I could use 9 point for body text and
8 point for footnotes if I used double column format on a 8.5x11 page.

There has been considerable discussion regarding the use of sans-serif and
serif type faces. One observation has been that often corporations use
sans-serif in their publications (Annual reports and other financial
reports). Has it ever occurred that perhaps they are hoping that the
reader gets tired and quits reading? :-) Do not assume that everyone who
prints something REALLY wants to have it read---- After all, what is the
point of fine print?

I think that the most important thing to remember is that you want your
reader to be comfortable in reading your family history. It will probably
be a large volume and I would hope that you would want him to enjoy his
experience and finish reading the entire book. With Windows, you can
easily choose any font that appeals to you. If you want to use a font that
looks like comic strip printing, you can. Just remember that the reader
may quickly tire of it and never finish reading your family history. I
think the important thing is to keep your reader in mind as you make font
selections.

Frank


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