SERIF VS SANS
The feet are a style choice
Serifs are the small strokes at the ends of letters. In a 2005 study they made no difference to reading speed.
See the studyA PLAIN-ENGLISH GUIDE TO TYPE
Serif or sans?
Size matters more.
What makes text easy to read is mostly not the little feet on the letters.
Try the size explorer
1 POINT= 1/72 inch
- Size it right
- Give it room
- Set it plainly
- Serifs are optional
People argue about serifs. The evidence points elsewhere: how big the letters really are, how much room they get, and how the page is set. Here is what a typeface is, how big a point is, and what official guidance says about readable text.
Plain English, with the sources linked.
Updated
THE SHORT ANSWER
Big enough, spaced enough.
Serifs barely change reading speed.
Size, spacing and layout do the heavy lifting.
THE POINT SIZE
A point is 1/72 inch
So 12 point is one sixth of an inch. It measures the body of the type, not the letters you see.
Try the sizes
EASIER TO READ
Room to breathe
Accessible text needs enough size, spacing and plain setting: left-aligned, sentence case, no long runs of italics.
Four habitsA POINT SIZE EXPLORER
How big is
a point, really?
Pick a size to see a sample line set in it, with what that size means in inches and millimetres and where official guidance puts it.
Screens vary, so treat the sample as a guide. The point itself is fixed: 72 to the inch, by the definition web style sheets use.
TWO THINGS WORTH KNOWING
Old metal,
new evidence.
Where movable type took off in Europe,
and what a lab found about serifs.
About 180
Gutenberg Bibles printed
Gutenberg's Bible was the first book printed with movable metal type in Western Europe: about 145 copies on paper and 35 on vellum. Movable metal type had been used in Korea nearly a century earlier.
MAINZ · ABOUT 1455
None found
Effect on reading speed
A Vision Research study compared versions of one typeface that differed only in their serifs. Reading speed showed no effect, and legibility changed only slightly at tiny sizes. Letter spacing mattered far more.
SERIFS · 2005
The lesson from both: the shapes have changed less than people think, and how much space the letters get matters more than their decoration.
MAKE IT READABLE
Four habits
for easier text.
Start at 12 points
GOV.UK guidance gives 12 points as the minimum for documents. Go to 16 or more for large print, 18 or more for posters and slides.
Write in sentence case
Whole sentences in capitals are harder to read, because the letters are harder to tell apart. Keep italics for short phrases.
Align left, not justified
Justified text creates uneven gaps between words. Left-aligned text keeps the spacing even and the reading smooth.
Give lines room
Leave space between lines and paragraphs, and avoid very long lines. The ONS suggests 75 to 120 characters per line as comfortable.
TYPE FACTS
Five things worth
knowing about type.
Typeface and font are not quite the same
The typeface is the design. A font is one version of it, such as the bold or the italic. In metal type, each size was a separate font too.
A point is one seventy-second of an inch
Web style sheets define 1pt as 1/72 of an inch, so 12 point is one sixth of an inch, or about 4.2 mm.
The x-height sets how big text looks
Point size measures the type body, not the letters. The height of small letters like x, the x-height, varies between typefaces; style sheets even have a unit for it.
Serifs barely matter for reading
A 2005 study found no effect of serifs on reading speed. Any legibility effect appeared only at very small sizes near the limit of sight.
Spacing is an accessibility rule
The web accessibility standard WCAG 2.1 says text must still work with line height at 1.5 times the font size and paragraph spacing at twice the font size.
QUICK QUESTIONS
Type, answered.
Short answers to the questions people ask most.
What is the difference between a typeface and a font?
A typeface is the design: the shared look of a family of letters. A font is one particular version of it, such as the bold or the italic, and in the days of metal type, one size as well. In everyday use the two words are often swapped.
Is serif or sans serif easier to read?
For ordinary printed text, research suggests the difference is tiny. A 2005 study in Vision Research found no effect of serifs on reading speed, and only a very small effect on legibility at sizes near the limit of sight. Size and spacing matter more.
How big is 12 point?
A point is one seventy-second of an inch, so 12 points is one sixth of an inch, about 4.2 mm. That measures the body the letters sit on, not the letters themselves, which is why two typefaces at 12 point can look different sizes.
What is x-height?
The x-height is the height of the small letters without ascenders or descenders, such as x, a and o. A typeface with a larger x-height tends to look bigger at the same point size. Web style sheets even have a unit for it, the ex.
Did Gutenberg invent printing?
No. His Bible, finished in Mainz in about 1455, was the first book printed with movable metal type in Western Europe. The Library of Congress notes that movable metal type was used in Korea nearly a century earlier.
Where the facts come from
- CSS Values and Units: the point, the inch and the ex unitW3C
- The Gutenberg Bible, Mainz, about 1455Library of Congress
- Serifs and font legibility (Arditi and Cho)Vision Research, 2005
- Publishing accessible documentsGOV.UK
- WCAG 2.1: Understanding text spacing (1.4.12)W3C WAI
- Service manual: accessible text formattingOffice for National Statistics