Talk:Serif
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What's the evidence for this line: "Europeans often consider sans-serif type easier to read.". The few books I find in my local library in sans-serif fonts are usually from US publishers. Some modern magazines in the UK use sans-serif fonts (to look trendy), but serif is considered easier over in the UK too. Surely it's to do with the serifs providing extra visual clues to the shape of the letters. -- Tarquin
- As longe there is no evidence delivered, i suggest removing this statement. Fantasy 10:08 Mar 17, 2003 (UTC)
- I have somewhere lodged at the back of my brain for over a decade (so please don't ask a source) that serifs guide the eye while reading. To this day I get a massive headache (and fail) when trying to speed read sans-serif, so there must be some evidence to support this. Kim Bruning 19:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
An image would be good; I'm not sure whether I know what a serif is yet, but I think so. -- Sam
- I tossed one up. Feel free to improve... --Brion 07:59 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)
- the one there at present is great.--ZayZayEM 00:32, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've found a glossary of typography terms at adobe.com (http://www.adobe.com/support/techguides/printpublishing/typography_basics/letterform_anatomy/main.html) . I think that all of them should be on Wikipedia. Nikola 10:29, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Another remark from the back of my brain was that when carving letters, people would first put in the end points of the letters, to prevent them from accidentally chiseling past and ruining the letter. I learnt dtp over a decade ago and looked all this stuff up way back when, so this definately would need to be hunted down with proper references. Kim Bruning 19:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Anyone else notice
- Typically serif fonts are used for body text because the serifs tend to guide the eye along the line, while sans serif fonts are used for headings and for small sections of text, because they typically look 'cleaner' to the eye.
Wikipedia uses sans-serif as body text. Ah, anarchy will surely ensue.--ZayZayEM 00:29, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Fortunately it hasn't. I think that's mainly because you can set a wikipedia style that does support serif fonts in your user settings.phew Kim Bruning 00:59, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think the true situation is that while serif fonts are more legible than sans when printed, sans are actually easier to read than serif on the screen, because the much lower resolution of the screen does not reproduce the serifs very cleanly. And as fara s Wikipedia is concerned, the default settings seem to use a sans font on the screen and a serif font for printing, which is just as it ought to be! rossb 22:05, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)