Glencoe Keyboarding with Computer Applications

Choosing Fonts

Introduction
Learn about different font styles and how they can be used to create an effective and attractive document.

Directions
Read the information below and apply what you learn to answer the questions. Key your answers into the spaces below. After you finish keying, check your work carefully and click Submit.

Create Effective Documents
When you look at your student textbooks, you will see that they use an assortment of font styles, colors, and sizes. If you were to evaluate the font choices closely, you would see that chapter headings are a larger size and one particular color; section headings are smaller and probably have a contrasting color to the title. Certain activities and instructions would use yet another font style. These choices are carefully planned so that students can easily find specific information in their books.

Serif and San Serif Fonts Fonts usually fall into two categories. Serif fonts have short lines at the top or bottom of a letter. Times New Roman and Courier are examples of serif fonts.

Sans serif letters do not have the lines. Ariel and Tahoma are examples of sans serif fonts. [insert fonts as shown in paragraph]

Guidelines for Print Documents Here are some rules to keep in mind when creating print documents:

• Limit the number of fonts that you use to three or four.
• Use a sans serif font for titles or headings.
• Use a serif font for the body of the text.
• Be consistent about using the same font style for each particular element in the document. For example, if you use 14-point section headings, make sure that all your section headings have that format.
• Use bold or italics only for emphasis, as little as possible.
• Remember that too many fonts can confuse a reader. Longer documents can use more variety, but one page documents such as flyers or brochures can look too busy and distracting.

Guidelines for Web Pages Web pages use many of the design guidelines described above for print documents. Often, you will see sans serif font on a Web page because it is considered more modern and takes up less space than serif text. However, sans serif letters are not necessarily more readable than serif.

The major difference between a Web page and a print document when choosing fonts is whether or not the font is available on software. Web designers are limited by the fonts available when creating a page. More importantly, they must choose a font that viewers can access when they visit the page. If visitors’ software does not include that font, they will view the page with whatever font their computer chooses.

Find Information on a Web Site If you need to find out more about this topic, get your teacher’s permission to use a search engine. Here are some keywords you might use: font design, typography, desktop publishing.

1			What is the difference between a serif font and a sans serif font?
2			How many font styles should you limit yourself to when creating a short document? Why?
3			What type of font is preferable for a heading in a document and which is preferable for the body?
4			Why is it important to be consistent about the types of fonts you use?
5			Why might a Web page designer not want to use an unusual font?