Re: Most readable line lengths?

[Roger Jones <Roger -dot- Jones -at- RJPC -dot- DEMON -dot- CO -dot- UK>]

Further to the excellent advice posted to the list, may I just reinforce
the point about the importance of the individual qualities of the typeface
used.

10pt Times on a 12pt line is very common, but to many people it looks too
tight on an 11pt line because the face is quite "big on the body" (i.e.
occupies much of the notional space available for each individual
character) and its x-height -- the distance between the top of the
lower-case "ex" and the baseline on which it sits -- is quite large. 10pt
Bembo has a much smaller x-height and therefore looks more spacious than
Times on a 12pt line; it's also smaller "on the body" and therefore for
some people may be too small for comfort at 10pt.

So the "right" solution in terms of the legibility of a block of copy could
be 10/12pt Times or, equally, 11/12pt Bembo.

If you want to experiment, zoom in on some test characters to, say, 500%
and see how the common typefaces vary.

All the best

Roger Jones, Publisher
Publishing -at- rjpc -dot- demon -dot- co -dot- uk
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader free of charge from www.adobe.com


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