Font advice.

[Lobo]

Hi Folks,

I am producing several WWII campaign maps for a friends book. The area is quite large - N (Denmark), S (Munich), E (Prague) and W (Bristol), and although the page size for the maps, in landscape format, is 236mm x 153mm, allowing for margins they have to fit into an area 206mm x 118mm. My problem is that I have to fit many Luftwaffe bases and 1-3 USAAF BD flight paths, as well as Luftwaffe attack paths, and I can't find a font small and clear enough at 100% page size to get everything in. The best I can find is 'Vrinda' 8pt and 'Arial Narrow' 8pt, but these are too small and unclear.

My question is, am I flogging a dead horse here, is the task impossible considering the area to cover and amount of content, or is there a magic font out there that will, even though small, will allow clarity and allow me to complete the task?

I just thought of another question: I'm also providing some diagrams for 'inline' page use. Do I have to know the page/text layout so as to ensure diagrams fit at 100% and text is clear and readable?

Thanks for any help.
Les

[Lobo]

Hi Folks,

I am producing several WWII campaign maps for a friends book. The area is quite large - N (Denmark), S (Munich), E (Prague) and W (Bristol), and although the page size for the maps, in landscape format, is 236mm x 153mm, allowing for margins they have to fit into an area 206mm x 118mm. My problem is that I have to fit many Luftwaffe bases and 1-3 USAAF BD flight paths, as well as Luftwaffe attack paths, and I can't find a font small and clear enough at 100% page size to get everything in. The best I can find is 'Vrinda' 8pt and 'Arial Narrow' 8pt, but these are too small and unclear.

My question is, am I flogging a dead horse here, is the task impossible considering the area to cover and amount of content, or is there a magic font out there that will, even though small, will allow clarity and allow me to complete the task?

I just thought of another question: I'm also providing some diagrams for 'inline' page use. Do I have to know the page/text layout so as to ensure diagrams fit at 100% and text is clear and readable?

Thanks for any help.
Les

[John Rayner]

Hi Les,

Have you played with humanist Condensed? I have used this with good results down to 6pt.

http://img264.echo.cx/img264/657/1upload6yl.gif

[gwpriester]

Hello Les

You might try 5 or 6 point, but in all caps. Verdana, which is a font found on most computers, works pretty well at small sizes.

Not quite sure what you are asking in your second question. But you can try printing some samples of different fonts on your desktop printer to see which ones work the best.

Gary

[Lobo]

Thanks for replies.

John; I found it and have added it to the 'possibilities' list.

Gary; I'm thinking of using Verdana, but how do you get it down to 6 point, by dragging?

Do you know why, say, 8 point in Xara X1 looks like 6 point in Illustrator CS, at 100%.

What I mean by my second question is - if I design a diagram that is to be used inline with text on a page, do I need to know the size of the space it will fill - I want to use the smallest point size/font that retains clarity. My thoughts here are that any image reduction to fit will render text unreadable, so I need to design for a known area size on the page? I kinda know the answer to this is yes, but I'm new to this and its a lot to take in, for me.

Thanks again.
Les

[John Rayner]

"how do you get it down to 6 point, by dragging" - Les

That is easy! Select the text, type in 6 in the text size box, then press the enter key ...

If the printer can print with the vector file than it will retain clarity as a much smaller size. So if you can create the artwork to look good in illustrator, it should be little or no problem.

[jclements]

I have pretty good luck with good old ARIAL NARROW.

[Egg Bramhill]

Les
re your question about point sizes I think this is down to the old 96 / 72 dpi native formats of different programs.
Egg

http://www.xlwebdesign.co.uk/tg/pointsize.gif

[Availor]

Hello Les,
I'm dealing mainly with text layouts and educational catalogs/books, so text is my specialty. If you link the picture of your file perhaps I can help you out.


Regards.

[Lobo]

Thanks for the help folks. Yep, Arial Narrow is another I'm considering.

Egg; thanks for going to the trouble with the image explanation. This 96/72 dpi thing is unfortunate. I use Xara 100%, only checking layout/display in Illustrator as I think X's .ai format is pretty old.

Here's how this section of a diagram shows in Xara X1 and Illustrator CS, at 100%. Text is Verdana 10 point. How do I know how it will appear on page after its been to the printers? Illustrator appearance is better (being smaller), shall I trust that? How can I work in Xara when it 'may?' be displaying an untrue depiction of line and text. Is it possible to get X's display dpi to coincide with Illustrators? Sorry for these further q's.

Availor, thanks for the help. My friends previous books have maps where the text is so tiny, tiny that a magnifying glass is needed to read it, yet clarity is perfect. Do you know where I can get such a font?

Les

http://img12.echo.cx/img12/5931/xandi9en.gif