http://typophile.com/node/37541

Great thread, but it's oriented more towards pleadings. I think that I've just about settled on Sabon for briefs/pleadings. My question is geared more towards correspondence.

One thing you mention but don't explore is text block on your letter. Manipulating the width of that will allow you to use a more efficiently spaced type like Minion without sacrificing legibility due to the unweildy line-length.

I'm a European, and so use the standardised paper sizes rather than US letter size, which I assume you'll be using. A4 is more rectangular, and therefore probably more easy to work with than US letter, but neither is a truly appreciable shape on which to set type. One trick might be to set your block to a known, respected shape like a golden section or a hexagonal calculation. That way you can mitigate the clumsy paper shape with your type set in a respectable block.

A quick cheat I use regularly (on A4) is to set a wide left margin. It's not measured, but the asymmetry and shorter line-length work almost immediately. Liberate yourself from the paper size! If you want more information, Bringhurst has a great discussion of the text block in his book, The Elements of Typographic Style.

If you think through the design of your letter I think you'll have an easier time finding the right face to express your missives.

My favorite Times replacement is Aldine 721 (i.e. the Bitstream revival of the Plantin face). It has somewhat similar proportions to Times but better color. It's very neutral and legible. And many people won't notice it as a "non-default" face.

A.

Constantia has been judged to have high legibility.

Why not look for a typeface designed in the 21st century? Instead of the old usual suspects. ;)

This thread has a nice list with fairly new serif typefaces.

Linotype Times Ten! It rocks when laser-printed even at 12 (or 11) points, and completely solves your too-narrow problem, as well as having a noticeably more beautiful italic than regular Times. And most correspondents you use it with won't have any idea what hit them, or why your letter looks so good—they won't immediately think that you're trying to be All Fancy.

Sabon has always struck me as a better correspondence typeface than briefing typeface, so if you like it for briefs, you might like it for correspondence as well. I tend to like Palatino better. Palatino's vertical spacing using "single spacing" on a word processor is greater than Sabon's, though.

My suggestion, however, is that you go to ebay, and buy yourself a new copy of WordPerfect 8 (yes, from the '90s), generally available for ten bucks or less. It comes with a HUGE number of Bitstream typefaces (something on the order of 1000), including clones of many you might want to consider. I've spent a lot of money on fonts that seemed ideal for legal work, but that turned out not to be for reasons that just weren't evident at first glance. Then do up a few sample documents, and try out a bunch of the fonts that you think might be suitable. Not everything you might be considering will be there, but believe me, it's a royal pain to spend money on an expensive font that turns out to be unsuitable unsuitable for some obscure reason (e.g., the weird pilcrow in Le Monde Livre). I really like Dolly's color and cleverness, for example, but the friggin' figures. Aaargh! It cost me about 450 bucks for a 5-user license--that was an expensive lesson. And there are more expensive fonts, such as those from DTL. If I hit Powerball I might buy some DTL fonts.

One of the problems with many of the newest fonts, including most of the new Microsoft fonts that come with Vista and/or Office 2007 (e.g., the very legible and nicely done Constantia), is the current vogue for old style figures as the default figures. For a lot of legal work those simply won't do, although there may be some types of law practice for which OSF are perfectly okay. With few, if any, exceptions, the Bitstream fonts on the WordPerfect 8 CD don't have that problem.

One last hint: if you're using Microsoft Word 2003 or later, TURN OFF THE EXPLETIVE DELETED ORDINALS SUPERSCRIPTING, and pick the WordPerfect-style justification if you're gonna right-justify.

Supposedly, old style figures are more legible, which is why a a test of legibility (for on-screen, though) showed both the serif 2007 fonts showed greater legibility than Times New Roman, measuring by number of mix ups. Cambria showed the lowest percentage of mistakes overall, but most likely because the number recognition in Constantia was incredibly low, most likely do to the fact that people are unfamiliar to that style of number. In letters, which make up the bulk of what is on most pages, though, Constantia was the best, which I think makes it superior (besides, I like old-style numbers, even putting numbers in Georgia in TNR text).

Here it is: http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/81/legibility.htm

Oh yeah, how do you disable the ordinals superscripting, and why should I (I don't know what it is)?
Also, how do I know whether cleartype is on or off and how I one decides which it should be.

Lots of good advice here...thanks!

Olho: Good suggestion re: the text block, but unfortunately, I don't control my law firm's stationery, and given the design, large margins would look awkward.

peter.ricardo: I'm aware of Times Ten and will give it a look. I have Dutch 801 in the Bitstream library; I seem to remember reading that it's based on Times Ten, not Times New Roman. Can anyone confirm this? It certainly isn't as condensed as TNR. And I assume Dutch 801 Headline is Times 18?

Quincunx: I'm open to a 21st century font. Among those mentioned in the thread that I've looked at and liked are Dolly, Arnhem, and Miller. Arnhem struck me as the most appropriate, but it's hard to tell from a screen sample. Does anyone have any experience with it in a business setting?

Re: Old style numerals: I think someone suggested in the other legal thread (the one sii posted) that they're OK for text but you definitely don't want to use them in legal style citations, which makes sense to me. Of course, if you're going to use both lining and old style, you need a program that supports OpenType, which rules out Word and WordPerfect, i.e., what most lawyers use. (My firm has both.) I guess that I'd have to stick with lining numerals for everything until Microsoft and Corel finally get with the times and incorporate OpenType. (I have Apple Pages at home, so no problem there.)

And while we're still on the subject of Sabon...can anyone recommend a good sans to use for headers? I've tried Optima, but I'm open to other suggestions...

I think you'll find that something more vanilla than Optima will work better, but even then pairing a sans with a serifed font is tricky in legal work--it tends to look a bit weird, since almost nobody does it, and judges/lawyers/clients aren't used to seeing it. Try experimenting first with "free" alternatives such as Corbel and Segoe, or the Bitstream Clone of Frutiger, Humanist 777, if you have that. Anything but Arial. Corbel would be my first choice, since it's beautifully clean and matches Sabon in x-height, but the OSF in Corbel may give you problems.

I assume by "headers" you mean headings or subheadings such as "Argument and Authorities" or "2. XYZ Corp. probably does not have a colorable fraud claim."

In the design forum, I posted in the font for book thread asking about sans if I absolutely had had to use one, producing a list that you might want to look at.

For old style figures, why don't you just use a different font for numbers outside of text? Cambria might be close enough to Constantia that its numbers could be switched as long as the numbers in one font aren't in the middle of text in the other.