 | Using the appropriate font in your WordPerfect® document
By Katherine McCray
A typical installation of WordPerfect® provides you with many fonts you can use in your documents. Not to mention the additional fonts that you can install from the Graphics CD shipped with the suite. With so many fonts to choose from, deciding which one would work best with the document you're currently working on can be a daunting task.
To make this decision, you could read the countless books about fonts and how to use them; however, it could take years to sort through all the available information. All you really need to do to get started is learn a few basic concepts. In this article, we'll discuss font appropriateness, legibility and readability to help you decide what font to use for each of your projects. As an example, we combined some of these concepts to help select the right font for the book sale flier shown in Figure A.
Figure A: You don't need to be a font expert to choose an appropriate font for your document.
Definitions
Before we begin, we'll provide a short list of font-related definitions. If you aren't too familiar with fonts, this list should help you understand the concepts discussed in this article.
Font. This refers to a complete assortment of upper- and lowercase characters, numerals, punctuation and other symbols of one typeface.
Serif vs. sans serif. Serif typefaces contain a finishing stroke (called a serif) at the end of each letter. The letters in sans serif typefaces don't have serifs.
Typeface. This term refers to a particular type design identified by a specific name, such as Helvetica, Arial, Chicago, Times, Times New Roman, and so on.
Type family. Typefaces are grouped into families with similar designs and a unique name, such as the Garamond family. The parent of the family normally has a regular or light width, and the relatives are variations of the parent's width and weight. Some families have dozens of versions.
Weight. This refers to one kind of typeface variation, such as light, regular, italic and bold. The weight of a typeface is often changed to create a type family. For example, the parent Garamond might have Garamond Light, Garamond Bold, Garamond Regular and Garamond Italic in its type family.
Width. This refers to another kind of typeface variation, such as condensed or extended. The width of a font is often changed to add depth to a type family. For example, the parent font Garamond might have Garamond Condensed and Garamond Extended or other variations of width in its type family.
Appropriateness
A good place to begin your font selection is with fonts that appeal to you. However, the needs of your project, its intended audience, and the feeling you want to convey should also play a major role in this decision. Once you have some fonts in mind, divide them into two groups, formal and casual, and choose the group that best fits your project. Now out of this smaller group, you need to take into account the personality of each typeface and then choose one that your audience will identify with. For example, we looked at a group of casual fonts for our book sale flier and then chose the VAG Rounded-light font because it's considered to be a "fun" font that appeals to children.
Legibility
The font you choose must also be legible, which can be an issue of type size, but more often is a question of typeface design. The fact is that some typefaces are just easier to read than others. This leads to another element you should consider while looking through your font group: the amount of text the font will be applied to. Some fonts are perfectly legible in a heading or when applied to a few words, but become illegible as soon as they're applied to body text. Ornate typefaces are a good example of this, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B: Ornate typefaces, such as GoudyHandtooled BT, are good to use with headings but not with body text.
Legibility is also a matter of personal choice. The typefaces people consider most legible are the ones they're most familiar with. When making a font selection based on legibility, you need to keep your audience's taste and preference in mind. For example, if the audience you're trying to sell your books to is made up of theatrical connoisseurs, they may feel more at home with the Broadway font shown in Figure C, and therefore perceive it to be more legible.
Figure C: What your audience is familiar with plays a part in what is perceived as legible.
Readability
Readability is a category distinct from legibility; it involves not only the typeface, but also all of the elements that come together in a layout: type size, color, white space, paper, and so on. In other words, readability is created by everything that goes into the overall design of a printed page. When choosing a font, be aware of the size it will be and how its design relates to the rest of the layout.
Keep the type size proportional
As a general rule, the standard type size for body text is 8 to 10 points--12 points for younger and older audiences. Anything smaller is too hard to read and anything larger looks sloppy. Subheads are generally 2 to 4 points larger than the body text. Modifying heads, which reference headlines, are usually 18 to 24 points, and headlines vary depending on space and design, but usually fall somewhere between 32 and 72 points.
Regardless of the point size, the goal is to keep everything in proportion. You don't want to use a 72-point headline, a 24-point modifier, an 18-point subhead and 8-point type--that's just too abrupt a change. In our flier example, we set the headline at 36 points, the modifying heads at 18 points, and the body text at 12 points.
Some basic readability rules
Since the advent of the printing press, people have been laying out type. And during this time, basic rules for readability have developed. The following rules apply to fonts:
- Keep it simple. Use only one type family whenever possible. Your first instinct may be to give your document variety by applying a different font to each element, such as subheads, bylines, captions and various notes. But doing so would more than likely adversely affect your design, as shown in Figure D. As an alternative, select a different weight or width, such as a condensed, light or italic version of the same font, as we did by using the VAG Rounded-thin font for the body text of our flier.
Figure D: Souvenir Lt BT may have an interesting look to it, but it doesn't go well with the font we used for our modifying heads.
- Be consistent. When you choose a typeface for a section of your document, use it consistently. For instance, if you have several sections in one document and you format the first section's headline with 48-point Garamond Bold, then sections two and three should be formatted in the same way. Apply this principle throughout your design.
- Use serifs. When it will take your audience more than a few minutes to read the text, use a serif typeface. The theory is that serifs lead your readers' eyes from one letter to the next, making the type easier to read and reducing eyestrain.
Now go out and break the rules
Appropriateness, legibility and readability are some of the basic concepts of type that can help you get started in choosing an appropriate font. However, you don't need to think of them as hard and fast rules. The best guide to follow is your own style and common sense. Give yourself the freedom to experiment with type. If you explore your creativity, your design will reflect the time and effort you put into it.
In the end, however, you need to be comfortable with the fonts you've selected, how they communicate your message, and how they work with your overall design. Work with a limited collection of fonts until you're at ease with them, and then expand into a larger font library. Before long, you'll be an old pro at choosing the right font for the project at hand.
A step-by-step solution to choosing fonts
As we mentioned above, it could take a lifetime to amass all the information there is to learn about fonts. One solution is to let someone else do the work for you. Corel's Clipart and Libraries Catalog books, which are shipped with WordPerfect 8 and 9, respectively, are a good place to start. These books break down fonts into categories with summaries on how best to use them. Daniel Will-Harris, a California-based designer, provided this information to Corel and provides even more font information on his Web site. One of the most useful aspects of the Will-Harris House Web site is its step-by-step guide to selecting the appropriate font for a document.
To check out how this works, go to www.will-harris.com and then scroll down the page to click on the EsperFonto link. This brings you to an introduction to fonts and more links. To start the step-by-step process, click on the Click Here To Begin link. Each step contains a font-related choice and the information needed to help you make the right choice for your project, as shown in Figure A. As you move through the steps, the list of appropriate fonts grows smaller. The steps are the same for formal or casual fonts, as follows:
- Step 1: Formal vs. Casual (we chose Casual)
- Step 2: Casual Body or Display (we chose Body)
- Step 3: Casual Body — Friendly or Serious; Cool or Warm; Modern or Traditional (we chose Friendly)
Figure E: Each step provides the information you need to narrow your font search and continue on to the the next step.
The last page in the process displays the final list of fonts that match the criteria you've chosen as well as a few more font tips, as shown in Figure B. If a font name in the list is highlighted, you can click on it to see examples of how it looks.
Figure F: In three short steps, the Will-Harris House Web site gives you a list of fonts that match your project's criteria.
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