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Subject:Re: Re : Line text length From:"Dennis Hays/The Burden Lake Group, Ltd." <dlhays -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 22 Jul 1996 17:17:05 -0400
As regards to line length--here's a post to this newsgroup I sent on January
25th:
One formula which Frank Romano uses in his book "Desktop Typography with
QuarkXPress is FONT SIZEx2=line length in picas. So 9 point type times 2 is
18. 18 picas or 3 inches. (Another formula is lower case alphabet x 1.5) All
this, of course depends on the mass of the type. Usually a line with 55 or
60 characters (9 to 10 words) provides optimum readability.
Hope this helps
Dennis Hays
>DAVID IBBETSON wrote:
>> A "rule" that's been quoted at me recently is that column width should be
about
>> 1 1/2 alphabets.
>(which I understand as 26 + 13 = 39 characters)
>While BRUCE BYFIELD wrote :
>> An alternate practice I've heard is that no line should be longer about
>> 52 characters and spaces long, regardless of font size.
>Even the 52 char. rule is much narrower than the 5 in. rule.
>The table below gives the length of a line according to font size
>(text printed in lower case Times New Roman) :
>Size Length (cm)
> 39 char. 52 char.
>10 6.5 8.5
>12 7.5 10
>14 8.5 11.5
>16 10 13.5
>Does anyone practice one of these rules ?
>--
>Frédéric Wronecki
>France Télécom, Paris, France
>mailto:frederic -dot- wronecki -at- wanadoo -dot- fr
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Dennis Hays\The Burden Lake Group, Ltd.
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