Fonts for books

[newtknight]

Which of the fonts that Microsoft has in the standard Word installation in
XP are good for books?

I have purchased some books on typography which have been helpful, but I
really need to know more specifically what are the reasons for one font over
another. Also, I am going to have one font to the text, and another font for
excerpts for documents, which pairs of fonts would work well together?

Thanks

Ed Sebesta

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Ed

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules here, as your books on
typography will have suggested. Relevant considerations include:

1. The general "feel" you want your book to have. Is it to be informal and
modern, or traditional and formal?

2. The size of the printed book and the size of the margins. The choice of
font, font size and leading (the vertical space between lines) depends on
how wide the block of text is. Newspapers, for example, frequently print in
7pt type. This would be much too small for the width of an A4 page, but it
works with the narrow columns of a newspaper.

3. The type of paper. If you have really shiny, smooth paper, you can use a
font with very thin, delicate serifs. But if you have paper that is not
really smooth, then the ink on the delicate serifs will disappear into the
"valleys" in the paper, and the whole thing will look very irregular.

4. How important the text is to the book. If it's a novel, then you would
want readers to read it, so legibility is important. If it's a coffee table
book of pictures with little text, then legibility won't matter so much.

5. In choosing pairs of fonts, it is currently very fashionable to use a
serif font for body text and a sans-serif font for headings.

6. If you're using Word, set up the styles for your document on the
principles discussed at
How styles in Microsoft Word cascade
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/styles/HowStylesCascade.html

This will make it easy to make complete changes to your text with only three
or four mouse clicks.

7. When in doubt, use Times New Roman <g>.


Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Jonathan West]

7. When in doubt, use Times New Roman <g>.

That is *very* good advice!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I agree. Despite typographer snobbery (you'll often see exhortations to
avoid TNR and Arial at all costs), for 90% of what I do (though not for most
books), I stick with TNR and Arial. Yes, they're overused, but for that very
reason they're invisible. No one will *notice* what font you have used
because the text just looks "normal" to them. It's only if you want to call
attention to the typestyle that you need to choose another font. That said,
the fonts I've used for books include the following combinations:

Text: Baskerville; headings: Bellevue (a book of light essays with a musical
theme)

Text and headings: Adobe OldStyle 7 (a memoir)

Text and headings: Goudy Old Style (memoir/local history)

Text: Palatino Linotype; headings: Papyrus (self-help/inspiration)

Text: Book Antique; headings, CG Omega (law/history)

Text: Bernhard Modern BT; headings: Mistral (poetry)

Text: Palatino Linotype; headings President (business/motivation)

Text and headings: Book Antiqua; diary excerpts: Tiffany Light; letter
excerpts: Bradley Hand (memoir)

 

[David C. Hurd]

Suzanne,

These are wonderful suggestions.

I've finally settled on Bookman Old Type (11 point) for the
science/engineering applications book I'm writing since one reviewer thought
TNR looked too dense, but the BOLD Bookman Old Type font looks pretty
clunky. Any alternative font suggestions for replacing the BOLD? Thanks in
advance.

aloha,

David C. Hurd
www.ukuleles.com

 

[newtknight]

I am putting together a book of historical documents from my library. I have
visitors to my library and I think that I could do a book on them.

I am going to use 8 1/2 X 11 inch pages of acid free paper but not finished
paper. I have two fonts I need, one for my text explaining the source of the
text. Another for the historical text itself.

For my text I want to have the feeling of being modern, credible, pleasing
to the eye, friendly, easy to read for wide accessibility, and not
off-putting by being too pretty, unfriendly, or officious or heavy.

The quotes need to be easy to read, somehow the feeling of historical
documents, but under no circumstances any romanticization or beautification.

They need to be fonts on my Word that came with my XP Windows computer.

Thanks

Ed Sebesta

 

[newtknight]

I am putting together a book of historical documents from my library. I have
visitors to my library and I think that I could do a book on them.

I am going to use 8 1/2 X 11 inch pages of acid free paper but not finished
paper. I have two fonts I need, one for my text explaining the source of the
text. Another for the historical text itself.

For my text I want to have the feeling of being modern, credible, pleasing
to the eye, friendly, easy to read for wide accessibility, and not
off-putting by being too pretty, unfriendly, or officious or heavy.

The quotes need to be easy to read, somehow the feeling of historical
documents, but under no circumstances any romanticization or beautification.

They need to be fonts on my Word that came with my XP Windows computer.

Thanks

Ed Sebesta

 

[newtknight]

I am putting together a book of historical documents from my library. I have
visitors to my library and I think that I could do a book on them.

I am going to use 8 1/2 X 11 inch pages of acid free paper but not finished
paper. I have two fonts I need, one for my text explaining the source of the
text. Another for the historical text itself.

For my text I want to have the feeling of being modern, credible, pleasing
to the eye, friendly, easy to read for wide accessibility, and not
off-putting by being too pretty, unfriendly, or officious or heavy.

The quotes need to be easy to read, somehow the feeling of historical
documents, but under no circumstances any romanticization or beautification.

They need to be fonts on my Word that came with my XP Windows computer.

Thanks

Ed Sebesta

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To be sure, Bookman Old Style has a very assertive boldface! In some
situations, this would be an advantage. Text that you wanted to stand out
would definitely not be missed, and headings could be left at a smaller
point size without losing importance. But if you have large blocks of text
that need to be bold, then I can see that this would be a definite drawback.

There's not much you can do to change the typeface style, but if TNR is "too
dense," you might experiment with expanding the spacing (Format | Font |
Character Spacing) to see if that makes it more acceptable to the reviewer.
If not, you will just have to find another typeface. If you like Bookman,
you might try Century Schoolbook, which is supplied with Access 97 SR2,
Creative Writer 2, Office 2000 Premium, Office 4.3 Professional, Office 97
Small Business Edition SR2, Office 97 SR1a, Office Professional Edition
2003, PhotoDraw 2000, Picture It! 98, Publisher 2000, Publisher 97,
Publisher 98, and TrueType Font Pack. It also has a rather pronounced
boldface, but it is not as heavy as Bookman. Both these fonts have a rather
large x-height, so you will want to use them at smaller point sizes than you
would TNR and also allow more leading (line spacing).

 

[David C. Hurd]

Thank you once more for your cogent advice.

I spoke with Richard Defendorf, who is also a full-time book editor, and he
made the suggestion that sometimes a non-serif font in bold can be a
distinguishable but non-intrusive approach for setting off objects. I've
chosen Century Gothic 11 point bold for this purpose and am pleased with the
results.

Again, thank you for your advice.

aloha,

David C. Hurd
www.ukuleles.com