What font are you using for what type of book?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm trying to find out how this preference for sans serif came about given that pBooks used serif fonts long before there were eBooks.

For me it came about because once I had the choice, I realized that for me, sans serif is easier to read. I understand that others don't feel the same way, and rejoice in the fact that we all have the choice to read in the way that is most comfortable and pleasing to us.

What a wonderful world it is, that has books in it!

Shari

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Plex seemed a little too "squared off" for me — if that makes any sense. I also had to use it at a smaller font size than I normally use.

Slab serifs tend to have that look. I prefer transitional and Clarendon serifs.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by hobnail

A similar change in taste/convention is that almost all of the books you get from Project Gutenberg (i.e., old and out of print) use Roman numerals for chapter numbers. Which to me looks pretentious.

Aren't they just preserving the numbering in the original book?

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Aren't they just preserving the numbering in the original book?

Yes, and the style of the numbering. They also preserve the advertisements at the end of the book. All of that's fine; it's what they should do since they're an archive. What I meant by pretentious is that by today's conventions it strikes me that way.

Since I'm reformatting them for my personal use, and occasionally uploading here, I use the Rework Chapter Heads sigil plugin and change them to words, Twenty-three, etc. but for the TOC they have the word Chapter in front of the number, while in the book it's just the number words. It looked a bit bare and sparse without the word Chapter in the TOC.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Yes, and the style of the numbering. They also preserve the advertisements at the end of the book. All of that's fine; it's what they should do since they're an archive. What I meant by pretentious is that by today's conventions it strikes me that way.

Since I'm reformatting them for my personal use, and occasionally uploading here, I use the Rework Chapter Heads sigil plugin and change them to words, Twenty-three, etc. but for the TOC they have the word Chapter in front of the number, while in the book it's just the number words. It looked a bit bare and sparse without the word Chapter in the TOC.

Roman numerals for chapters never struck me as pretentious.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Roman numerals for chapters never struck me as pretentious.

I can see it seeming like that for books written in the last several decades, but can also see where it might be mood setting, but would prefer hindu-arabic numerals.

I read a pbook a few months ago with no chapter numbers or titles at all. That was a bit annoying, especially when I wanted to find something earlier in the book.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I can see it seeming like that for books written in the last several decades, but can also see where it might be mood setting, but would prefer hindu-arabic numerals.

Numerals, as in 23, seem sort of cold and sterile to me compared to the friendlier Twenty-three. We're reading, not doing arithmetic.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I read a pbook a few months ago with no chapter numbers or titles at all. That was a bit annoying, especially when I wanted to find something earlier in the book.

Even when they only have a chapter title I think it's better if they also have a chapter number.

[ps67]

Originally Posted by ps67

My preferences are not related to genres but to kind of file.

Bookerly is my preferred font for Epub (with some exploration of Literata and Georgia Pro).

For Kepub I currently use Roboto Slab (alternatives are Bitter and Lexia Dama).

And for Pocketbook Color a heavier version of Linux libertine until now (I received it yesterday).
Finally for Kindle Paperwhite: Bookerly (or Bitter)

[Camellia]

I use ChareInk exclusively.

[Uncle Robin]

Boring Bookerley here for Roman script, Mangal for devanagari, tempted to see what font Kobo uses for nastaliq, if I could buy it.

[MarjaE]

I can't switch fonts.

If I could, then for readability I'd use Andika for Roman and Cyrillic alphabets, Skeirs for Gothic. YMMV.

[Alex_Go]

I like Century Schoolbook; and Calibri or Verdana if i feel like Sans... But I like to switch from time to time.

[Simboubou]

I just use Times New Roman.

I tried reading in bookerly, Baskerville and a couple other, but I always found that Times had lesss wasted spaced on the horizontal axis.

[Fiat_Lux]

Gentium Book for material that utilizes the Latin Writing System.
Noto Sans _language_ for everything else.

They are decidedly not pretty, but I decided to convert everything to one font family, when I realized that one font designer's Final Nun looks exactly like another font designer's Vav, and that slowed down my reading speed by at least 100 wpm.

I'd prefer to read pretty fonts, but pretty and pan-Unicode seem to be mutually exclusive properties.