Easiest to read page size

[Steve Litt]

Rich Shepard said on Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:59:21 -0700 (PDT)

>On Thu, 26 Oct 2023, Steve Litt wrote:
>
>> I've done some research on this topic. Generally speaking, each line
>> should be a little less than 70 characters. If they get much longer,
>> the reader has a hard time going to the proper next line. If they
>> get much shorter, you get increases hyphenation and funky inter-word
>> spacing.  
>
>Steve,
>
>That's consistent with what I read years ago when I consumed several
>books on typography.
>
>> Beyond that, a lot of readability hinges on where the reader will be
>> reading. Paper? PDF on full sized monitor? PDF on mobile device?
>> ePub? Combination of preceding?  
>
>The document is a PDF. I've set the page size to US Executive
>(8"x10"), text font is URW Palatino 11 pt. Outer margins are 0.5",
>inner margins 0.9" for binding (it's typeset for double-side printing.)
>
>If someone wants to read it on their mobile telephone, wristwatch, or
>eyeglasses it's up to them to do so.
>
>Thanks,

Hi Rich,

The fact that you're using double sided printing indicates to me that
your expected output format is paper. If the binding is at all stiff,
0.9" seems like too short an inside margin to me. 11pt is nice, but it
makes for some problems for those whose vision isn't correctable to
20/20. For those reasons I use 12pt or 14pt, but of course if you
expect your readership to be primarily young, 11pt is good. 11pt
would save a lot of printing cost compared to 12pt. I'm glad you didn't
choose 10pt.

I presume your choice of page size is done based on what book sizes can
be done for what price.

Bringing out a new book is always exciting.

SteveT

Steve Litt 

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21