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Home , Line length, Widows and orphans

April 2008

If You Want it Read, Make it Legible t has been more than 20 years since readability is the ease Paul Brainerd, the founder of Aldus with which text is read Graphics Corporation, coined the term desktop and understood. The publishingI to distinguish his software program choice of affects Printing PageMaker from professional . Over legibility, and the way the that time period, typesetting has migrated from typeface is used affects Mailing the world of commercial printing and publishing readability. Truly effective Under One Roof to homes and offices. The quality of type balances produced by today’s inexpensive and readily- readability, legibility, and available software programs is very different from style to create interesting TechneGraphics, Inc. Park 50 TechneCenter the primitive appearance of type generated by text composition that 2002 Ford Circle early programs. promotes comprehension Milford, OH 45150 and retention. One result of typesetting’s migration to the (513) 248-2121 Fax (513) 248-5141 desktop is the need for a wide variety of people Research suggests that – from art directors to graphic designers, selection, font size, letter spacing, word Web site: as well as marketing professionals and spacing, line spacing, and are all www.techgra.com administrative executives – to learn something important factors in determining readability File Transfer site: about typography. A simple definition of and legibility. www.tgidirect.net typography is the layout of text on a printed , but in a broader sense, it is a form of Font selection FTP site: ftp.techgra.com visual communication that effectively increases Not all are designed with legibility as the reader understanding. primary goal. A type designer may be exercising Email: creativity, making a statement, or have some [email protected] In traditional typography, good text composition (page other purpose in mind besides legibility. Script layout) –the arrangement of fonts on the page, fonts are an example: these are designed to the alignment of text, and the manipulation emulate or handwriting, and legibility of text, white space, and graphics – improves Would you like is sacrificed in small sizes and if used in all visual appearance so the reader doesn’t notice more tips? capital letters. the composition. Instead, the reader’s entire Try our weekly email attention is focused on the message the text The characteristics of a typeface that make it newsletter – Tuesday intends to convey. legible are its degree of openness (large, open Tips. To be added to counters, generous lower case x-heights); character the mailing list, send a Readability and legibility shapes that are easy to recognize; and restraint request to: Typography has a great effect on both readability (not overly light or bold, subtle changes within [email protected] and legibility. Legibility is a measure of how easy character strokes, and serifs that do not call it is to distinguish one letter from another, while attention to themselves). If You Want it Read, Make it Legible (continued) Font size The final way to adjust letter spacing is to apply Because digital type can be easily set in any point by adjusting the space between letters size, there is relatively little consistency in the size depending on the adjacent letter. Kerning improves of type in various publications. Adult books are the overall appearance of text by removing often set in 10 or 12 point type; newspapers use 8 unneeded white space. point type; large print publications vary from 14 to Word spacing “Generally speaking, 18 point. Generally speaking, the size of the font is influenced by the line length – the shorter the line Word spacing is often determined by typographical the size of the font is length, the smaller the point size. alignment, the setting of text flow relative to the page influenced by the line or margins. The four types of alignment are length...” Letter spacing flush left, flush right, justified and centered. As its name implies, letter spacing is the amount of spacing between a group of letters. During design, Text aligned to the left is also known as each character in a font is assigned a fixed amount ragged right, while text aligned to the right margin is of space. In a , each character known as ragged left. Centered text is not aligned to has an identical amount of space, while in a any margin and has an even amount of white space proportional font, some letters (such as i, l, t, f) are at both the right and left side of each line. Justified assigned less space and other letters (such as m, w) text is aligned along both the left and right margins are assigned more space. by adjusting word (and occasionally, letter) spacing, and is also known as full justification. Tight letter spacing, particularly in small point sizes, diminishes legibility. Adding white space around a Justification can affect readability and legibility by letter allows it to emerge and be recognized more either taking out or adding in too much spacing quickly. However, if too much white space is added, between words. In the first case, the words may the letter can become isolated rather than easily almost run together; in the second, there may be identified. rivers of white space that appear in the block of text. “Letter spacing can It is for this reason that flush left is more commonly be adjusted in one of Condensed fonts are designed with less used than justification. proportional space per character than the regular three ways.” version, while extended fonts allocate more Line spacing proportional space to each character. As a result, the Also known as , line spacing by itself has no condensed version of a font requires less horizontal bearing on readability and legibility; rather, it is the space than the regular version, and the extended combination of leading and point size that creates style requires more space. the effect. As with word spacing, too little space between lines makes the individual words hard Letter spacing can be adjusted in one of three ways. to distinguish, and too much space between lines The first is by use of ligatures which are two or more makes it difficult to move smoothly from one line to characters joined with a connecting stroke to form the next. a single . Ligatures were widely used in Europe before the advent of sans type but are almost Line length entirely absent in desktop publishing programs. The optimum line length depends on the font and point size. A good rule of thumb is that a line Another way to adjust letter spacing is with tracking should be two to three alphabets in length, or which is the process of applying an equal amount of approximately 52-78 characters (including spaces) space between all letters. (This is also a commonly- in the point size of the font being used. A simple used way to fit more characters in a line as a way formula is to multiple the point size by 2, so the line to avoid widows.) Tracking is a term used in digital length for 12-point type would be 24 points. Use typography. this as a first try, then adjust as necessary. Spacing After a Period There is a holdover from the days of typewriters Here is an example: that negatively affects the appearance of a block Courier (monospaced font): of type – the practice of putting two spaces after The quick brown fox jumps over the a period. This practice is based on the fact that TRICKS lazy dog. typewriter fonts are monospaced, meaning that tips every letter takes up the same amount of space. Times Roman (proportional font): & In contrast, digital type is proportionally The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. “There is a holdover spaced, meaning that width of each character from the days of and its surrounding space are in proportion to In a monospaced font, two spaces were needed typewriters...” each other. In a monospaced font, the letter m between sentences to achieve a noticeable and i take up the same amount of space; in a separation. In a proportionally spaced font, this is proportionally spaced font, the i takes up less not necessary and in fact leads to too much space space than the m. between sentences.

with the continuation of the on the next column or page. are How can I avoid considered undesirable as they disturb the aesthetic Q. appearance of the block of type on the page. creating widows and orphans Orphans are most easily eliminated by inserting & during typesetting? a blank line or forcing a page break to reunite the orphan with the rest of the paragraph. Widows can Qquestions andA answers be eliminated by any of these techniques: First let’s define these terms. • forcing an early page break “Widows and Traditionally, a widow refers • adjusting the space between words orphans are to a final line of text in a • adjusting page margins considered Aparagraph that. appears at the top of the next • editing the paragraph undesirable...” column or page. It may also mean a single word or Widows can also be eliminated by adjusting two very short words that appear as the final line of letterspacing, though this runs the risk of a paragraph. distorting the characters or making the text An orphan is the first line of a paragraph that less legible. appears at the bottom of a column or page, 513-248-2121 PRSRT STD Fax 513-248-5141 US Postage PAID 2002 Ford Circle www.techgra.com Permit #271 Milford, OH 45150 [email protected] Milford, OH

If You Want it Read, Make it

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