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RE: Line Size for page (FM 7.1)

Subject: RE: Line Size for page (FM 7.1)
From: "Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 14:48:41 -0400


This is a subject that has come up numerous times over the years. If
the list archive is working (which it has not been the last 3 or 4 times
I've tried to use it...), you should be able to come up with a wealth
of information.

The basic answer to your question is the tech-writer's favorite refrain:
it depends. What does it depend on? The biggest factors are the
size of your body type and the design of the typeface you're using.
Most guidelines for line length are given in terms of characters per line,
which factors in both size and design. Other, less-important factors
include the leading, the overall page design, the medium (the optimum
is different for on-screen reading of PDF vs. printed PDF, for example),
and even the average length of sentences.

My opinions only; I don't speak for Intel.
Fred Ridder
Intel
Parsippany, NJ

-

From: "Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com>
Subject: Line Size for page (FM 7.1)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 11:25:56 -0700

I'm designing a book pretty much from scratch, using FrameMaker 7.1. The
company used to use a 7x9 page size, but we don't actually print our
books, we distribute them in PDF format and then expect our customers to
read them online or print them off on a laser printer. If you print a
7x9 book to laser, you get a small amount of info in the middle of big
blank space, which is not only hard to read but wastes paper. For that
reason, I thought to change the page size to 8.5x11.

At first, I used margins of
* 1.25" left , 1" right (right page),
* 1.125" left 1.75" right (left page)
* 1.125" top
* 1.375" bottom

Now I'm wondering if this is too large of a line length. Is there any
data out there that suggest the optimum line length for reading? I note
that my margins are real close to the default margins that MS Word uses
in normal.dot for a 8.5x11 page, but of course that doesn't prove
anything (other than that I'm channeling the mind of someone up in
Seattle...).

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References:
Line Size for page (FM 7.1): From: Joe Malin

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