If your document contains text, follow these rules.
1. Know a font’s personality. Every font has character, and people prefer things with character. What are the rules behind the ones they like? Know your target audience and your document’s purpose, and choose a font your audience expects and your purpose requires.
2. Use two fonts. Most documents look better with more than one font, but few look better with more than three. Remember: whatever the document, try two fonts, one for headings and one for body text. This makes your document easier to read and more attractive than a single font. The rule fits every document, from proposals to resumes to business cards.
3. Contrast font types. Two fonts are good, but two too-similar fonts are bad. Choose two fonts from different type categories: serif fonts (like Times New Roman), sans-serif fonts (like Arial), handwriting styles or decorative ones. Make sure the fonts look distinctly different.
4. Pay attention to font size. Because 12-point is the default in word processing software, most of us assume it is the most readable size. But our eyes can read smaller text, and in most documents 10-point fits better. On a business card you can even drop to 7 or 8 point. Headings, of course, need larger type than body text, and the most important text in a document should be larger still.
5. Create ideal line lengths. Line length is the length of a single line of text. Too long, and text is hard to read. With very large fonts a line can be long, but with small fonts (say 10-point) your line length should not exceed about 3.5 inches. Calculate it from your font size: about twice the font size. If you use 12-point, your line length should be about 24 picas, or 4 inches (1 inch = 6 picas). Microsoft Word’s default 11-point Calibri on 8.5-inch paper gives a line length of 6.5 inches, which is too long.
6. Adjust line spacing properly. Line spacing, also called leading, is the space between lines. It usually follows the font size, slightly larger than the type (10-point type defaults to 12-point spacing), but that usually looks cramped. Consider increasing the spacing to make reading easier, though not by too much.
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