Choosing a font is something that most of us give little thought to. After
all, most fonts are more or less the same, right? Let's face it, most
writing is presented in a stock-standard font like Times New Roman or
Arial.
Why is the choice of font important?
There are many differences between fonts: some obvious, some subtle. As
well as setting the mood of what we write, these differences can have
significant effects on legibility. In this article, we'll classify fonts
in several different ways and compare the effects that these have on
legibility. Let's start by comparing serif and sans-serif fonts.
Serif versus sans-serif fonts
Start up a word processor and type a letter "h". Change it to a large size
(say 72 points) and use Times New Roman as your font. Notice the three
small cross strokes at the ends of the strokes. These are called serif.
Fonts that provide these are said to be serif fonts. Fonts that do not are
sans-serif fonts. ("Sans" is the French word for without.)
Now change the font to Arial, Helvetica or Verdana. These are all sans-serif
fonts. Notice that the three small cross strokes have disappeared.
Serif fonts, all things being equal, are easier to read.
This is because the serif makes the individual letters more distinctive
and thus easier for our brains to recognize quickly. Without the serif,
the brain has to spend longer identifying a letter because its shape is
less distinct.
An important proviso must be made, however.
On the low resolution of a computer screen, very small serif text (say 10
points or less) might actually be harder to read than corresponding sans
serif because the more complex shapes of serif characters cannot be
accurately drawn in sizes this small.
Deciding whether to use a serif or sans serif font is still a personal
choice, however, and no hard-and-fast rules apply. Even though serif fonts
are usually easier to read, you might prefer a sans-serif font for a
particular document if you feel that it sets an appropriate mood.
Sans-serif fonts are often thought to look more modern.
A commonly followed convention, though, is to use a serif font for the
body text of your document and a sans-serif font for the headings. My
recommended fonts for general work are Georgia (a very lovely serif font)
and Verdana, a very legible sans-serif. Verdana is probably already
installed on your computer.
Fixed-width and variable-width fonts
In some fonts, every character is the same width; in others, the
characters are of different widths. Not surprisingly, these fonts are
termed fixed width and variable width respectively.
Start up you word processor. Type half a dozen lower-case "l"s and then on
the next line type half a dozen lower-case "w"s. In most fonts the "w"s
will be much wider. (Such fonts are variable width.)
Now select the two lines of characters and set the font to Courier or
Courier New. Notice that both lines are now the same length. Courier is a
fixed-width font.
It should be no surprise that variable-width fonts look more natural and
are thus easier to read. Fixed-width fonts such as Courier have quite
limited application:
* Computer programmers use fixed-width fonts in order to neatly align
their code.
* The other main use of fixed-width fonts is to produce tables that need
to be neatly tabulated into fixed-width columns.
Conclusion
As an exercise go through the fonts on your computer and find five
variable-width, serif fonts that you like the look of. Choose among these
for the body copy of your documents.
Now find five variable-width, sans-serif fonts. Use these for your
headings, captions, headers and footers.
Armed with these simple ways of classifying fonts, you should now have an
easy time of choosing suitable fonts for all occasions.
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