Which font for low light / old eyes?

[John Darragh]

I'm looking for recommendations for a font (and point size) that will
be legible for people of all ages under low lighting conditions.

(The font will be used for a book of affirmations designed to be read to
children in bed *after* they have gone to sleep. Available lighting
will most often be limited to a fairly small night light or candle.
The people reading will be the child's parents, grandparents,
greatgrandparents or possibly a younger babysitter.)

I'm using Microsoft Word 4.0D on a MAC SE/30 running system 6.05.
I have an HP II-P laser printer with a PostScript cartridge. It has
ITC Avant Garde Gothic, ITC Bookman, Courier, Helvetica, Helvetica Narrow,
New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, Times and ITC Zapf Chancery builtin.

Are any of these builtin fonts good candidates? At what point size?
If not, what font would you recommend and where do I find it? Public
domain, ftp'able fonts are my preference.

Thanks for your help.

John dar...@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

[Truett Smith 2953]

Well, with a corrected vision of 20/200-, I think I can give you some
legitimate advice. Two things make print difficult to read. The first
is narrowness. This eliminates anything based on Times Roman and also
eliminates anything like the Helvetica Narrow. The other problem is
that too many fonts are either too thin in weight or have such wide
variations in weight that they are hard to read. Most versions of
Courier are weak and insipid -- on the same page with a heavier font
like Helvetica, they look like an accident. Many versions of Garamond
share this problem. One additional point is to put sufficient leading
between the lines.

The ITC Avant Garde Gothic, the ITC Bookman, and the Helvetica are
generally quite readable. If you have New Century Schoolbook in a demi
weight, it will be quite nice. I would recommend about 14 pt on an
18 pt line for the purpose you describe. Look for something in which
the x-width is not too small relative to the font height.

I hope that helps.

Truett Smith
San Jose, California

[Jiro Nakamura]

New Century Schoolbook was designed to be legible under bad conditions
(terrible printing) and maximum legibility (kids). I would go with
that.

Sans serif are not legible for plain text (they make nice displays and
headlines, just not rows of the same material).

The other serifs you have in your printer: Palatino is kinda light, Times
is good and legible. I'd still go with Schoolbook since it's the heaviest.

- jiro
--
Jiro Nakamura ji...@shaman.com
The Shaman Group +1 607 277-1440 Voice/Fax/Data