Typophile

Designing for screen PDF's (long documents).

jidoe

I'm designing a 100+ page document that is intended to be read primarily on screen (as a downloadable PDF) but it must also look great when it's printed.

I'm about 20 pages into laying out the type, and I'm starting to think that my body copy font choice, Helvetica Neue 55 Roman, may not have been the best choice. It looks a bit crude on screen.

I've considered using a more screen friendly font (Verdana, Arial, etc), but then I'll be sacrificing the integrity of the print version. So, use 2 separate fonts? No dice, I refuse to set this document twice, it's far too long.

Have any of you encountered a similar conundrum? If so I'd like to know what you ended up doing (ie did you use separate fonts for a print and a screen version, or did you find a font that handled both mediums fairly well?).

Thanks eh.

schickele

Give Palatino a try.

James Michaels

I had a similar situation once, and ended up going with one font (it was so long ago I don't remember which one.) Two versions would mean more time spent proofing, and any subsequent revisions would have to be made to both versions to keep them in sync. Plus two versions in two different fonts could mean that a paragraph that's on page 65 in the screen version might be on page 66 in the print version, which could conceivably lead to confusion.

Charles Ellertson

Since the aspect ratio of the typical screen (even Kindle or iPad) is different than for the typical book, we've always felt you have to reset the text anyhow. That lets you pick a different font for the screen . . . Fonts that reproduce well on the screen aren't something I know much about, but they've been discussed heavily in several typophile forums.

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