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View Poll Results: Do you prefer Serif or Sans Serif Fonts for reading?
Serif 29 65.91%
Sans Serif 15 34.09%
Voters: 44. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-19-2009, 12:00 PM   #1
kilofox
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Question Serif or Sans Serif for readability?

Serif Font on top, Sans Serif on bottom.



Which do you prefer? Also if you have a specific font please say so.

I am curious what people like.

Myself... I like Sans Serif, but I think most books, if not all, that I have bought on Amazon for the Kindle have been Serif.

Last edited by kilofox; 02-19-2009 at 12:19 PM.
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:05 PM   #2
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Sans serif is easier on my eyes, because it doesn't have the distracting "decorations" around each letter.
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:20 PM   #3
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There is a reason why virtually all books are printed in Serif fonts - it's what the majority of people prefer.
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:20 PM   #4
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Personally I have a slight preference for a serif font on screen. I'm just more comfortable with them, but I have no problem with sans-serif fonts on screen most of the time. (I've bought some ebooks that were sans serif and got used to them fairly quickly).

Paper's a different story.

I cannot stand sans serif fonts in general, or Arial in particular on any printed document over 10 pages or so. It's just a pain to read.

Online it's no big deal - but Arial on paper is a mess. Since I do a lot of manuscript work, I generally leave any word-processing software set to something with serifs for anyone who has to use a printout of the document.
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:30 PM   #5
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In the end... I can deal with either. I just find San Serif more "relaxing" to my eyes. I tend to see more Sans Serif online than I do in paper.
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:33 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kilofox View Post
In the end... I can deal with either. I just find San Serif more "relaxing" to my eyes. I tend to see more Sans Serif online than I do in paper.
I think this also has to do with the Font... face it, some fonts are just crap. A good quality serif font can be very pleasing to read.

BOb
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:39 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
There is a reason why virtually all books are printed in Serif fonts - it's what the majority of people prefer.
... and there is also a reason why most of the on-line content is presented using sans-serif fonts. Including Mobileread.

The vast majority of text that appears on screen is in sans-serif. With the possible exception of text inside Text Processors, or DTP programs. Sans serif is much more readable on a low resolution medium. And e-ink *is* low resolution medium and will remain low resolution medium until it doubles its dpi to at least 300.

let's have a look, once again at quote from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans_serif
---- quote ----
Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. However, the resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.
---- end of quote ----
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:43 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kilofox View Post
Myself... I like Sans Serif, but I think most books, if not all, that I have bought on Amazon for the Kindle have been Serif.
You can measure how much easier it is to read one or the other.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_S...l_Presentation
and try some of the programs.
Try different fonts and see how many words per minute you can comfortably read
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Old 02-19-2009, 12:44 PM   #9
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The pool question is very unclear.

I propose
What font do you prefer for reading ON [e-ink] SCREEN?
Serif
Sans Serif
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Old 02-19-2009, 01:36 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
There is a reason why virtually all books are printed in Serif fonts - it's what the majority of people prefer.
Nope, that's what publishers prefer. For readability, sans serif is probably better, but serif looks nicer.
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Old 02-19-2009, 04:48 PM   #11
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I actually prefer sans serif, though it's hard to find anything printed in it.
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Old 02-19-2009, 05:30 PM   #12
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I strongly prefer serif when reading a book. But I'd rather see sans serif on a website, because I like to use a fairly small text size and most serif fonts get distracting to me at smaller sizes.
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Old 02-19-2009, 05:42 PM   #13
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San serif on low resolution devices like a Cybook (Lucida Sans) and serif on paper.
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Old 02-19-2009, 06:01 PM   #14
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The font used on the Kindle (1) is a very crisp serif font. Even though the e-Ink screen isn't as high-res as print, this font displays very nicely and is easy on the eyes. I'd have to pick up my Sony reader -- and it's currently asleep in my backpack -- to check and see what fonts have been used in the couple of purchased books I have. The majority of books I have on the Sony were created using Calibre and I haven't gotten my hands around setting a font other than the default. Might be worth some experimenting.
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Old 02-19-2009, 06:04 PM   #15
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I read my first e-books on PDAs like Palm or Sony CLIe. On those I preferred a sans-serif font for better readability. On E Ink screens I find serif fonts rather pleasant to look at, so most of my self-made texts are now in serif.
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