Re: Fonts for books

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From: Suzanne S. Barnhill (sbarnhill_at_mvps.org)
Date: 07/01/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:16:34 -0500

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). 

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"David C. Hurd" <ukulele@ukuleles.com> wrote in message
news:hFECc.88$ju5.75@twister.socal.rr.com...
> 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
> "Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbarnhill@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:OG5EXQfWEHA.4020@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > 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)
> >
> > --
> > Suzanne S. Barnhill
> > Microsoft MVP (Word)
> > Words into Type
> > Fairhope, Alabama USA
> > Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
> > Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
> so
> > all may benefit.
>
>

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