- Law eight.
Set body text two to three alphabets wide.
When you're creating a document that's
meant to be read you wanna make sure
that the text is legible.
And we've talked about this before but
legible text is simply text that is
clear and easy to read.
An important aspect of legibility
is line length.
Now, line length refers to the
length of a line of text.
It's the same thing as the width
of a block of text.
It's important that you set your
body text blocks at a width that's just right.
You don't want them to be too narrow
and you don't want the width to be too wide.
Here's an example of body text
where the line length is too narrow.
And because these lines of text are so short
your readers are going to be constantly
jumping from the end of one line of text
to the beginning of the next.
And that can be a little tiring
and a little distracting.
Narrow text blocks can also cause odd
right margins if your text is set flush left.
And this jagged edge is
pretty visually distracting.
It makes the paragraph look messy.
In this example both the right and left
edges are flush because this text is justified.
Now, in order to force both sides of this
text block to be flush the software is going to
add white space or gaps between these words.
And this white space and these gaps
can greatly disrupt the flow of the
body text and actually make it
more difficult to read.
You'll notice how in some blocks of text
the white space between words will
start to group together.
It'll start to form a continuous line of
white space that actually flows
through your paragraphs.
And because of this effect
these gaps are called rivers.
In this example the line length is set too wide.
And this can make it difficult for
readers eyes to follow this line of text
because it's so long.
Especially when they're moving from
the end of one line of text
to the beginning of the next.
Now in this example the line length is just right.
You can see that the right edge
of the text is smooth,
it's fairly even but the text block
isn't set so wide that it's difficult to read.
So for maximum legibility,
the width of your text blocks should be
two to three alphabets wide.
And a way to figure out how to do this
is to set a block of text using the
typeface and the type size that you
intend on using for your body text.
And then count the number of characters
including spaces.
The width of your text block
should be 52 to 78 characters wide.
And that's about two to three
alphabets worth of letters.
This is the ideal line length for body text,
for your chosen typeface
at your chosen type size.
So if your text size gets larger or smaller,
or if you decide to choose a different typeface,
you're going to wanna recalculate
the optimal line length because it will change.
If you've chosen a more complicated,
slightly fancy typeface or if
you're using reverse type,
you're gonna wanna use a shorter line length
for maximum legibility.
So you'd wanna choose a width of
two alphabets or even a little bit less
as a good place to start.
If you're using justified text
you're going to want a longer line length
to reduce rivers.
So a width of three alphabets is
a good place to start.
Let's summarize.
The width of your body text has a
big effect on text legibility.
If your body text is set too wide
or too narrow it can make the
text more difficult to read.
Narrow text blocks also have issues
that can make them less visually attractive.
So for maximum legibility set your
body text at two to three alphabets wide.
This is an easy way to obtain optimal line length.
That's law eight.
Set body text two to three alphabets wide.