On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Todd wrote:

> I'm getting close to wrapping up the platytest version of the Third Kingdom
and want to get it
> printed through Lulu. I vaguely remember reading something on their site
about using 12
> point font, yet when I print something out at home in 12 point it seems huge.
Does anybody
> have any experience or suggestions about which font size to use for standard
text (I'm just
> using Times New Roman)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Todd

This depends a lot on both the paper size and whether you use
one-column or two-column text. Generally, the longer a text line is,
the larger the font should be.

For my own Lulu book (see http://www.lulu.com/content/822069), I use
11 point font on a 120 mm line, which seems O.K. Most full-size RPG
books use two-column text, and from a "squint-eye" estimate from the
few examples I have near my table, they seem to use 9 point fonts.
The lines are typically 80 mm. So if you take the line width in mm
and divide by somewhere between 9 and 11, you should get a good
estimate of the optimal font size. It does, however, depend on the
font used. The point size is based on the height of letters
(including ascenders and descenders), but some fonts use wider letters
than others. Times New Roman is a fairly narrow font, so you should
use a slightly larger font size for a given line than if you use, say
Helvetica (which is fairly wide).

Torben