🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4811@dove.nist.gov>, gilligan@bldrdoc.gov (Jonathan Gilligan 303-497-3861) writes:
> In article <oneil.713599413@cwis> oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil) writes:
>>For most purposes, one would want to use a 12 point type anyway.  In my
>>opinion, even 10 is a bit small for most purposes because it is somewhat
>>difficult to read.
 
> But if your principle text is set in 12 point, then super and
> subscripts will be set at a smaller size (typically 9 pt or so), as
> will footnotes. Super and subscripts in footnotes will be set at a
> smaller size (about 6 pt). Since I do a lot of technical typesetting
> (lots of equations), a document set with 12 pt type for the principal
> face will contain lots of 9 pt and 6 pt type, so it's necessary to
> have good-looking type at far smaller sizes than I use for the main
> text.

To further muddy the waters, I would claim that other than
single-column printing on US Letter paper or A4, 12 pt is
distinctly too large for most text applications. On the other
hand, with most of the piece-of-crud editing facilities provided
by WYSIWYG systems, anything smaller than 12pt is distinctly
illegible on-screen (gosh, what a surprise, the typography for
on-screen viewing at 70-100dpi is different than that for
printing at 300+dpi!) so perhaps that's the driving force. Sigh.
Anyway, you'll be hard pressed to find many books aimed at adult
readers typeset entirely in 12pt and larger.

-dh

Don Hosek                  
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu  
Quixote Digital Typography 
714-621-1291