Large Print Rulebooks!

[deinol]

But I notice with the release of the new smaller essentials line a lot of people clamoring for smaller rulebooks.

To which I say, "NO!"

Have you gotten to look at an essentials book? The font is definitely large, and backgrounds are white. If they were priced $10 more I'd hate them, as they seem to waste so much space. As it is, they are digest because the content is spread between several books. I'm tempted to pick up a Rules Compendium because it does seem like a good reference at that size and price point.

Of course, I just used my borders coupon and gift card to pick up Deathwatch instead. Great looking book, but that kills my gaming budget for a while. In comparison the font looks about 12 pt, and is definitely smaller than essentials.

 

[Wicht]

Have you gotten to look at an essentials book? The font is definitely large, and backgrounds are white. If they were priced $10 more I'd hate them, as they seem to waste so much space. As it is, they are digest because the content is spread between several books. I'm tempted to pick up a Rules Compendium because it does seem like a good reference at that size and price point.

Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with 4e or essentials, except that there are now some people now clamoring for all rule-books, regardless of company, to be of a comparable size, claiming they will be easier to carry. But if we have little books with big print we will have less rules and if we have little books with the same amount of rules we will have little print. So I would rather have good sized books with 10 or 12 point font and leave well enough alone.

 

[suicidepuppet]

This is a good topic to find at this time. I'm working on a fairly large project and have been studying the layout and formatting of publications, trying to be inspired by the work of others.

I have needed glasses my whole life but in the last few years it has gotten really bad, so I can identify with a lot of the current posts.

So 12pt is good for standard text? Or larger?...I'll be alpha testing the first part of this soon if anyone is interested.

As for layout, are columns preferred or standard book layout.

And if there is anything else you could add-pet peeves, favorite publications layout, use of color or border art, etc-please post that as well.

I would appreciate any feedback on this.

Thanks in advance

 

[Gilladian]

12 point is considered "average". 14 is also average, but rarely used as far as I can see.

16-18 pt is what you find in typical "large print" books. However, they also tend to use a font that is simpler and more linear (although NOT sans-serif, as serifs help eyes track lines of text) and with more white space between lines.

A few large print books use bigger font. Typical early-reader kids books use very generous font sizes, like 24 pts or bigger. For rules that's totally impractical, but it sure makes for easy reading!

Maybe every bit of text doesn't need to be 16 pt, but key rules called out that way would make quick in-game reference MUCH easier...

 

[suicidepuppet]

Hopefully technology will come to the rescue with ePub documents where the reader can adjust fonts, font sizes, and the like.

For one who is not opposed to PDF you can already do this. Leave it up to the brains at Adobe to not emphasize this is possible, but in Reader under View-->Zoom at the bottom of the menu is Reflow. Any text based document will now allow you to increase and decrease the font size (I hold down ctrl and use my scroll wheel to increase or decrease).

Now on over loaded documents you get a load of crap when you do this but on a well formed document it will let you read comfortably.

Maybe everyone already knows this, but I thought I would pass it along. It has made my day better on many occasions

 

[Wicht]

ctrl + and ctrl - also works for most things to control print size onscreen.