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

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

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)?



Very long ago, I read in the manual to an Amiga DTP program, called

Professional Page, that one should choose a combination of font size and

column width such that between 1.5 and 2 "alphabets" can fit on a line,

with the alphabet, a sequence of all the letters in the (English)

alphabet each occuring only once, being chosen because you then get a

combination of letter-widths which is comparable to that in ordinary

(English) text.



In my own layout experiments, I've found that 2 alphabets results in

slightly too short lines, relative to my preferences, so I go for

somewhat more. Perhaps 2.5 alhabets per line, although I'm not sure,

since those experiments were years ago (I think they can still be seen

on the Stat Help document in the Files section of the FFRE-Discussion

mailing list).



(To test different font sizes and column widths, I simply write out an

alphabet, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, and then colour the "a" red, then

copy that sequence several times, so that I can see whether it is

roughtly 1 2/3, 2, 2 1/3, 2 2/3, 3 or 3 1/3 alphabets that can fit per

line.)





In my recent documents, I've opted for a landscape layout, with the

paper lying down so that it is wider than it is tall. Also I use

European standard format A4 paper, rather than one of the USAn formats,

but as far as I know this causes few problems either way, since A4

matches one of the common USAn formats relatively well. Also, I go for 3

columns, with font size 9 for the Sagatafl Magic Items documents and

font size 10 for the Modern Action RPG documents. Always my font of

choice is Goudy Old Style.



There's one more twist. I give the "bread text" a generous margin, but

then I let the tables go out and utilize that extra width, so that the

space between actual layout columns is only something like 4

millimetres, but all non-table text is given a further left-indentation

and right-indentation of... well, I don't remember but perhaps 7 or 8 mm

on each side. This gives a fairly airy look while still letting me cram

a lot of information into the tables. Also in the Modern Action RPG

document I use a table font size of 9.5, to be able to cram in a little

extra.



Originally the Magic Items document used a size 8 font (still Goudy Old

Style), but I was then keenly aware that it was a draft-style document,

since size 8, at least with Goudy Old Style, is not particularly easy to

read for most people. I myself can read it, in printout, if given plenty

of light, but it isn't good. Some time ago I re-formatted the entire

document, switching from "portrait" to "landscape" layout, and from 2

columns to 3 columns, and a larger font size. The last change, to

indentate non-table text while reducing true column spacing, was IIRC

made at a later time, when I switched back from Open Office/Writer and

to using MS Word, and at that same occasion manually re-typed all the

tables in order to make the document faster to work with (it had become

very slow to scroll, from having spent some time as an Open Office

document, but fortunatley the re-typing helped a lot).





When I write fiction, I go for a font size of 12 (still Goudy Old Style)

and 2 columns in landscape format, with fairly generous margins and

column spacing to allow for handwritten notes (I even include line

numbers). Klaus read a draft of one of my stories in early or mid 2005,

so he might be able to comment on my choice of layout, although the most

likely outcome is that he isn't able to remember anything about the

layout at all, which means it did what it was supposed to do: not call

attention to itself.





One thing to keep in mind is whether you intend your texts to be read

on-screen or in printout. When I edit the Modern Action RPG rulebook

draft, I don't use WYSIWYG display any more. I did that originally, but

I've found it to not be all that productive, in part because I have to

crank my screen's display resolution up to 1600x1200 pixels, instead of

nice and flicker-free 85 hz 1152x864.



I sometimes do full-page-view editing of the Sagatafl Magic Items

document, because I have this idea that sometimes pieces of information

should be on the same page, for easy reference (this is because the

Magic Items document is still much more a reference text than a rule

book-like text), and so I need to switch text blocks and tables around

to achieve this.



I haven't done a lot of experimentation with on-screen reading, but I'd

guess that the Modern Action RPG rulebook draft, with its size 10 font,

is actually readable on-screen displaying one full page at a time,

although it won't be pleasant, whereas the Magic Items doc with the size

9 font is not; either zoom in or print it out.



Once I'm done with the MA RPG rulebook, I expect to create a couple of

different versions, one for printing out and one for on-screen reading,

with the on-screen version probably having only 2 columns and a bigger

font. Largest challenge will be finding a quick and easy way to modify

the layout, since I'll probably need to create on-screen layout versions

fairly often, given my tendency to revise and rewrite.



--

Peter Knutsen

sagatafl.org

So, Peter and Torben, what it sounds like you are saying is that I can use my

printer to

determine what Lulu's printed word would look like.  In other words, my 8 point

Times New

Roman is going to be pretty close to their 8 point Times New Roman.  I just

wasn't sure if this

was the case or if there might be some distortion on one of the two fronts.



Thanks,



Todd

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Todd wrote:



> So, Peter and Torben, what it sounds like you are saying is that I can use my

printer to

> determine what Lulu's printed word would look like.  In other words, my 8

point Times New

> Roman is going to be pretty close to their 8 point Times New Roman.  I just

wasn't sure if this

> was the case or if there might be some distortion on one of the two fronts.



In terms of size, I haven't seen any difference between my laser

printer and Lulu's print.  However, the print seems slightly "thinner"

at Lulu, so if you use a very thin font, it may be appear very light

in print.  If you have fine line-drawings (such as scans of pencil

drawings), they may be at risk too.  I would advice ordering a test

copy before making the book public on Lulu.



 	 Torben

Todd wrote:

> So, Peter and Torben, what it sounds like you are saying is that I can use my

printer to

> determine what Lulu's printed word would look like.  In other words, my 8

point Times New

> Roman is going to be pretty close to their 8 point Times New Roman.  I just

wasn't sure if this

> was the case or if there might be some distortion on one of the two fronts.



Actually there might be. When I convert an MS Word document to PDF

format, it seems to me as if the document shrinks somewhat, for some

very strange reason, with the margins becoming larger on all 4 sides of

the paper, and everything within those margins shrinking every so

slightly. The difference is minor, though.



For all I know a similar effect could occur at some point in the Lulu

guys' process.



--

Peter Knutsen

sagatafl.org

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Peter Knutsen wrote:



> Todd wrote:

>> So, Peter and Torben, what it sounds like you are saying is that I can use my

printer to

>> determine what Lulu's printed word would look like.  In other words, my 8

point Times New

>> Roman is going to be pretty close to their 8 point Times New Roman.  I just

wasn't sure if this

>> was the case or if there might be some distortion on one of the two fronts.

>

> Actually there might be. When I convert an MS Word document to PDF

> format, it seems to me as if the document shrinks somewhat, for some

> very strange reason, with the margins becoming larger on all 4 sides of

> the paper, and everything within those margins shrinking every so

> slightly. The difference is minor, though.

>

> For all I know a similar effect could occur at some point in the Lulu

> guys' process.



If you upload your document as a PDF, I don't think so (at least, I

haven't experienced any such).  What happens when Word is converted to

PDF is anyones guess, so I shouldn't wonder if something goes wrong

here.  IIRC, Word itself can not output PDF, so you typically use a

3rd-party tool to do so, often in the form of a pseudo-printer (that

prints to a PDF file instead of paper).



When you convert from Word to PDF, fonts are converted from TrueType

to PostScript fonts.  Normally, equivalent fonts are found instead of

actually trying to convert the outlines (which is tricky, as TrueType

is based on quadratic Bezier curves and PostScript fonts on cubic

Bezier curves), but the equivalent fonts might not be exactly the same

-- often TrueType copies of copyrighted fonts deliberately introduce

small differences to avoid legislation.  Also, kerning may be

different.  Word is notoriously bad at kerning, so when you convert to

PostScript and PDF, you get better kerning, but this might change

spacing a bit.  Also, ligatures for ff, fi and fl might be slightly

different.



 	 Torben

Torben AEgidius Mogensen wrote:

> If you upload your document as a PDF, I don't think so (at least, I

> haven't experienced any such).  What happens when Word is converted to

> PDF is anyones guess, so I shouldn't wonder if something goes wrong

> here.  IIRC, Word itself can not output PDF, so you typically use a

> 3rd-party tool to do so, often in the form of a pseudo-printer (that

> prints to a PDF file instead of paper).



Yes, I use a 3rd-party programme called PDFCreator, as a "driver".



> When you convert from Word to PDF, fonts are converted from TrueType

> to PostScript fonts.  Normally, equivalent fonts are found instead of

> actually trying to convert the outlines (which is tricky, as TrueType

> is based on quadratic Bezier curves and PostScript fonts on cubic

> Bezier curves), but the equivalent fonts might not be exactly the same

> -- often TrueType copies of copyrighted fonts deliberately introduce

> small differences to avoid legislation.  Also, kerning may be

> different.  Word is notoriously bad at kerning, so when you convert to

> PostScript and PDF, you get better kerning, but this might change

> spacing a bit.  Also, ligatures for ff, fi and fl might be slightly

> different.



That still doesn't explain why everything looks slightly "zoomed", with

the margins being larger. The change in font size is minimal, to the

point where it can't be seen. All I see is that if I take one printout

of the Word version and one of the PDF version, and stack them and hold

the stack up against a strong light, the Word version's "dark area", the

area that is not margin, is a few mm larger.



--

Peter Knutsen

sagatafl.org

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009, Peter Knutsen wrote:



> Torben AEgidius Mogensen wrote:

>> If you upload your document as a PDF, I don't think so (at least, I

>> haven't experienced any such).  What happens when Word is converted to

>> PDF is anyones guess, so I shouldn't wonder if something goes wrong

>> here.  IIRC, Word itself can not output PDF, so you typically use a

>> 3rd-party tool to do so, often in the form of a pseudo-printer (that

>> prints to a PDF file instead of paper).

>

> Yes, I use a 3rd-party programme called PDFCreator, as a "driver".

>

>> When you convert from Word to PDF, fonts are converted from TrueType

>> to PostScript fonts.  Normally, equivalent fonts are found instead of

>> actually trying to convert the outlines (which is tricky, as TrueType

>> is based on quadratic Bezier curves and PostScript fonts on cubic

>> Bezier curves), but the equivalent fonts might not be exactly the same

>> -- often TrueType copies of copyrighted fonts deliberately introduce

>> small differences to avoid legislation.  Also, kerning may be

>> different.  Word is notoriously bad at kerning, so when you convert to

>> PostScript and PDF, you get better kerning, but this might change

>> spacing a bit.  Also, ligatures for ff, fi and fl might be slightly

>> different.

>

> That still doesn't explain why everything looks slightly "zoomed", with

> the margins being larger. The change in font size is minimal, to the

> point where it can't be seen. All I see is that if I take one printout

> of the Word version and one of the PDF version, and stack them and hold

> the stack up against a strong light, the Word version's "dark area", the

> area that is not margin, is a few mm larger.



It could just be a bug in the converter.  I was thinkig it might be

caused by point-size differences (a PostScript point is 1/72", where a

traditional American point is 1/72.27"), but since PDF definitely uses

PostScript points (which are the bigger of the two), I can't see how a

translation would make the text area shrink.  There might be rounding

errors in the conversion from Word to PostScript units, but these

would have to be fairly large to be visible.



 	 Torben

Torben AEgidius Mogensen wrote:

> It could just be a bug in the converter.  I was thinkig it might be

> caused by point-size differences (a PostScript point is 1/72", where a

> traditional American point is 1/72.27"), but since PDF definitely uses

> PostScript points (which are the bigger of the two), I can't see how a

> translation would make the text area shrink.  There might be rounding

> errors in the conversion from Word to PostScript units, but these

> would have to be fairly large to be visible.



It is true that a point is not a point but in this case I don't think it

matters as most systems use Adobe Points through out now (of course I

suggest you want a Monotype Points and fount is spelt with a u) ;)



Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple use different algorithms for laying out and

rendering text. This can produced noticeable difference in the way that

a page is actually ripped. This is why a lot of professional print

people use MacOS as Apple's layouts tend to be closer to the way that

the page will look on paper. Microsoft tends to make the text look

clearer on the screen but this can change the layout in very minor ways

but the printed page tends not to look the same. Acrobat will display it

as the PDF Rip should rip it for the printer, which can be different

again but at least Adobe Rip's and Acrobat should be in sync. If your

printer is using a non-Adobe Rip you can see difference again but these

tend to be very marginal thickness changes in lines at some angles (and

it can be argued which Rip supplier is correct).



Regards

DaveF

--- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, Peter Knutsen <list@...> wrote:





> Yes, I use a 3rd-party programme called PDFCreator, as a "driver".

>

> [...]



I'm using a different driver, called PrimoPDF at home, but it works on

the same principle: it creates a virtual printer and prints the .doc to

a PDF file instead of printing to paper.



>

> That still doesn't explain why everything looks slightly "zoomed",

> with the margins being larger. The change in font size is minimal,

> to the point where it can't be seen. All I see is that if I take

> one printout of the Word version and one of the PDF version, and

> stack them and hold the stack up against a strong light, the Word

> version's "dark area", the area that is not margin, is a few mm

> larger.

>



And I also had a similar problem. I think I solved it by checking the

paper format I used in PDF-printing the doc. I don't recall the exact

details, and since I don't have that PDF creator here at work I can't

check right now. I do think that it was related to me having chosen A4

on Word and the default being 'Letter' (which is close to A4 but not

the same) on the PDF printing software. That and probably selecting

a 'print for on-screen reading' preference which probably by-passed the

standard printing settings.



I'm sorry I don't recall all of the deatils, I can check it out again

tonite at home if you need me to. I suggest you take a look at those

options (if they are there on your PDF creator) and make sure they are

set coherently with what you have. Hopefully this helps.



Mauro

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 2:33 AM, Todd <thirdkingdom@...> 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)?



In the "GenCon 08 Small Press Game Design & Publishing Crash Course"

there was some talk about this (either on the Layout or Editing

courses). You can check it (mp3 recordings) out at:

http://www.sonsofkryos.com/otherrecordings.html



The course is great, they cover lots of interesting topics.



> Thanks,

>

> Todd



Best regards,

Daniel Yokomizo