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More on Linespacing

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Typography Tip #3 recommends setting linespacing in Word to a multiple of 1.2. This has the effect of making each line of 10 point text 12 points tall. Is this a good recommendation?

Yes.

Miles Tinker ran a huge research program investigating typographic variables from the 1920s to the 1950s. Linespacing is one of many variables he thoroughly investigated. He collected data with multiple sizes of text and multiple line lengths. His standard methodology measured people’s reading speed while simultaneously carrying out a comprehension task that ensured that the text was fully understood. This ensured that he was only measuring reading speed differences and not comprehension differences.

When examining reading speed with 10 point text, Tinker found little difference between reading speed with text set solid and adding 1 point of linespacing (multiple of 1.1). A statistically reliable speed advantage was found by adding 2 points of linespacing (multiple of 1.2). And adding more linespacing past 2 points did not further improve reading speed. 2 points of linespacing appears to be the critical amount of extra space needed to separate lines, as 2 points was also optimal for both 8 and 12 point text sizes.

Linespacing with 10 point text:

Amount of Additional Linespacing

Reading Speed Difference in Percent

Set Solid (control)

0.0

1 point

-1.0

2 point

+5.2

4 point

+2.8

 

Bonus: In the comments for Typography Tip #3, Adam Twardoch asserts that the line length effects the amount of needed linespacing. Tinker’s data does not back up this assertion. This table shows that 2 points of linespacing performed the best at each line width tested.

Linespacing with 10 point text. Reading speed difference in percent compared to 19 pica line (3.2 inch) with 2 points of additional linespacing:

Line Width

Set Solid

1 point linespacing

2 point linespacing

4 point linespacing

9 pica (1.5 inch)

-9.3

-6.0

-5.3

-7.1

14 pica (2.3 inch)

-4.5

-0.6

-0.3

-1.7

19 pica (3.2 inch)

-5.0

-5.1

0.0 (control)

-2.0

31 pica (5.2 inch)

-3.7

-3.8

-2.4

-3.6

43 pica (7.2 inch)

-9.1

-9.0

-5.9

-8.8

Cheers, Kevin Larson

Miles A. Tinker, Legibility of Print, Iowa State University Press, 1963.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2006
    PingBack from http://www.codeka.com/blogs/index.php/dean/2006/05/18/line_spacing

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 17, 2006
    Hi,

    Great post, love those numbers. I hadn't seen the actual results of such studies before.

    To get a better feel for what the numbers were actually saying, I put together a PDF document showing each of the layouts used in the study. It's gratifying to find that the layouts with poor-reading speeds do look uglier!

    I've made the PDF available here, with some further comments:
     <http://willwont.blogspot.com/2006/05/linewidth-vs-linespacing-examples.html>

    Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    May 18, 2006
    The commenting system encoded that closing > as part of the URL above. Oops. Just delete the "%3E" to get to the right place.

  • Anonymous
    May 20, 2006
    John, I agree that more leading improves the aesthetics of longer lines. I expected a closer match between aesthetics and reading performance.

    Thanks for the visualization Will!

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2006
    Any chance that we could see some comparative data between the 8, 10, & 12 pt sizes mentioned? I'd be interested to see which is optimal, & by how much.

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2006
    Sorry for the off topic comment, but I was still hoping that fontblog might go into more detail abotu whether there is a way to get cleartype to work with displays oriented in portrait mode. There is conflicting info out there on the web. I asked about it in response to this post:

    http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/12/13/503236.aspx

    Kevin Larson then said in his response that Greg was going to go into some fascinating detail in response, but I never saw anything more from Kevin or Greg on this. Is there any worthwhile source for more information?

    thanks!

  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2006
    Why have the posts stopped?  Whats going on?

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 19, 2008
    Ранее мы уже обсуждали некоторые из технических усовершенствований (выделение имени домена, многострочная

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2009
    fontblog : More on Linespacing

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2009
    PingBack from http://typefacts.com/artikel/grundlagen/zeilenabstand