Best Font for a Technical Book

[SQLUSA]

My book is on similar topic as this one:



http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Micr...der_1118102282

What is the best font & size to use?

Thanks.

[macropod]

There is no such thing as a 'best' font or size. Different publishers have their own standards, which can entail the use of different fonts for headings, body text, footnotes, captions, etc, and these and the point sizes can vary according to the publication format. If you like the font and point size in your link, simply find one that matches/approximates it.

[SQLUSA]

Probably I can match the font by looking in the book.

How do I match font size? Trial and error? Count the words in 10 lines to see if they match?

How about the margins? 1/2"?

The book will be published as is in the Word document.

[macropod]

What you could do is to take a snapshot of a page of the text, paste, crop & scale it to the right size in Word, position it behind the text, then type the same text on a few lines in Word, so that your typed text overlays the pasted image. Then simply play around with various fonts and point sizes in Word till you find a close match.

To match the font, you might actually find it easiest to use an oversized image of the amazon page, as that will make it easier to recognize the similarities/differences. If you position the image carefully so that the first character of your typed text overlys the corresponding character in the image you can use the image's corner handle to quickly re-size it for precision comparisons again the font.

Matching point sizes can be difficult, as the publishers aren't restricted to 0.5pt increments like you are in Word. So, even if you get a good match

FWIW, the font is fairly similar to Times New Roman and Footlight MT Light.

As for the margins, simply measure them against a correctly-scaled image from the amazon page - it has the actual page dimensions (7.4 x 9.2 inches) on the site. Of course, that doesn't mean a great deal if you're not printing on the same finished paper size.

[SQLUSA]

I am thinking about Calibri 11.

Any opinion?

Thanks.

[Charles Kenyon]

Originally Posted by SQLUSA

Probably I can match the font by looking in the book.

How do I match font size? Trial and error? Count the words in 10 lines to see if they match?

How about the margins? 1/2"?

The book will be published as is in the Word document.

Wider margins are best because they leave room for notes. Also a shorter reading line makes it easier to read. Many text books split text into columns to shorten the lines of text.

A general rule is to use serif fonts for body text and sans serif fonts for headings.

The serifs are supposed to make it easier to follow a line of text.

[macropod]

I'd suggest you look at a number of publications of the same kind as what you're trying to produce, using approximately the same page size as you'll be publishing in (woth PDFs, of course, that's a bit noot). Consider all aspects of their page layout. Not just the margins, but also font & size, line spacing, indenting, page numbering, page headers/footers, the use of footnotes/endnotes, and so on. Look at what they do for heading fonts vs body text vs page headers/footers vs footnotes/endnotes. These could all be in different fonts. At the same time, you'll probably see minimal use of bold, underline & italics in the body text. What you probably won't find for the body text is the use of fonts that, like Calibri, lack serifs. The margins will also be somewhat larger than 1/2in.

[Charles Kenyon]

I concur with Paul's recommendation that you look at other books being sold to the same market and try to emulate the best.

[SQLUSA]

Font for clean text is one issue.

I have bigger issues. The book has lots of SQL program scripts and screenshots.

For screenshots I do, alt printscreen, paste to Word document, center it, right click menu, format it to black & white. However, while in color looks pretty good, the B&W version is not so good looking, also the text is not so sharp since the background is dark gray.

[macropod]

For code scripts, I'd suggest inserting properly formatted code directly into the document, with a suituably-defined 'code' paragraph Style (this will help ensure a consistent layout thoughout the document).

As for your screenshots, you'll never get anything better than screen resolution, so use the highest-resolution screen you can get access to. You might need to experiment with Windows themes (probably not using Aero) to find one that works well when converted to grayscale. Finally, make sure Word's image compression is switched off (before inserting the screenshots) - it can only degrade your images.

[SQLUSA]

Thanks Paul. I will test your suggestions.

What I don't like about the screenshots is the greyscale darkness. It just makes the book (other books I have seen) depressive.

Alternative is individually make the B&W screenshots brighter if possible at all. It is time intensive, but that maybe only way. I may have 500 screenshots by the time I am finished.

While I like screenshots is to convey a sense of reality to the reader: this is what you are going to see when you become a database designer, an SQL programmer.

[SQLUSA]

>make sure Word's image compression is switched off (before inserting the screenshots)

How do I do that? Thanks

[macropod]

File|Options|Advanced > Imaged Size and Quality > Do not compress images in file

[SQLUSA]

Where do I find File? I don't see it in the new style ribbon. Naturally I remember the old days with File drop down menu.

[macropod]

For Word 2007, click the pizza button near the top left.