Cover:
Brochure, Large Print, 14-Point Type
About This Product
A basic and easy-to-use type font size comparison chart with ample samples of Calibri Sans-Serif and Times New Roman Serif type. Includes comments on fonts and readability. Very handy for judging Bible type sizes.
Full Text of This Product
This simple handy chart can be helpful, but it can only approximately gauge (measure) font sizes. It is possible that you may find it slightly more helpful to fold this sheet closer to the capital Cs and capital Rs to make comparisons easier while holding the edge close to the type to be gauged—comparing sans-serif type fonts with sans serif type fonts and serif type fonts with serif type fonts.
Font sizes and styles are significant because of their relative readability and impact. Readability is particularly an issue with senior citizens and also to folk who may not yet be comfortable with the English language or with more extreme type styles.
Because readability is so important, most Christian books and pamphlets published by Bible Truth Publishers (and similar publishers) feature at least 10-point type, and 11-point, 12-point, and larger type is becoming increasingly common.
Bible Truth Publishers has begun to indicate (in the BTP catalog and on the BTP website) the approximate font sizes of the Bibles, books and pamphlets carried by BTP. This is a constantly ongoing project. That is one reason for the production of this chart—to make it easier to gauge the items already in print.
In the past, in some cases, the BTP staff have felt the need to simply guess, so the information in the BTP catalog and on the BTP website may still only be approximate at best; but BTP continues to work on making the information supplied more accurate. If a customer should find inaccurate font information, BTP would appreciate knowing about it.
Two other factors also affect the information. One is that the publisher of an item may say that their item features a particular font size while BTP’s supplier of that item may indicate a different font size. Added to that is the fact that mere height does not entirely determine the size of the font. There are other factors involved which are beyond the scope of this article and its author.
Three factors which affect read-ability are leading, boldness, and com-pression (condensed type). Leading refers to the space between lines of type. Adding space between lines can make type more readable, up to a point. If the lines are spaced too far apart, the space may interfere with comprehension and continuity.
Bold (heavy or strong) type is often easier for some people to read—again up to a point. If type is too bold, it becomes distracting and may actually cause additional eye strain.
Because, of our increasingly aging (and semi-literate) population, large print has become more popular in recent years.
But to try to appeal to people who want large print in a small format, some publishers have resorted to publishing Bibles with horizontally compressed (condensed) type. By doing so, they feel justified in claiming a large size font while reducing the size (and the production cost) of a Bible. Unfortunately, such type compression also reduces readability. BTP tries to avoid carrying these deceptive editions.
Red Letter type in Bibles also generally reduces readability, but that subject is covered in “Red Letter Bibles & Black Letter Bibles” (BTP #43307).
For those who are interested in Large Print, BTP carries a growing selection of large print literature and a Large Print Literature List is available (BTP #5227). As with “Giant Print,” the meaning of “Large Print” seems to vary with publishers (and sometimes with various editions from the same publisher) but a reasonable standard seems to be literature with 11-point type or larger, with “Giant Print” being 14-point or larger, and with “Super Giant Print being 16-point or larger.
Calibri Sans-Serif Type
Calibri 6
Calibri 7
Calibri 8
Calibri 9
Calibri 10
Calibri 11
Calibri 12
Calibri 13
Calibri 14
Calibri 16
Calibri 18
Calibri 20
Calibri 24
It is best to check your gauging by comparing both lower case and upper case (capital) letters when and where possible.
Times New Roman Serif Type
Roman 6
Roman 7
Roman 8
Roman 9
Roman 10
Roman 11
Roman 12
Roman 13
Roman 14
Roman 16
Roman 18
Roman 20
Roman 24