Re: Optimal line length for sales documents in pdf

[Kathleen MacDowell <kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Perhaps the idea of "the width of your eyes" was meant to allow for
scanning, which could make it easier for people to read materials,
especially technical ones.

Try reading a very long sentence having the page set horizontally and I
think you'll grasp the idea. There's a lot more to reading/understanding
than line width or sentence length, of course, but there's no reason to add
to the readers' task.

Kathleen

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 7:58 AM, Sean Brierley <
sean -dot- brierley -at- gerberscientific -dot- com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Why were you told the width of your eyes was a good length? Is there
> research to support that?
>
> When I began, I was told "four inches" was a good line width. Being a
> horsey kind of guy, that's always stuck with me, but I can't support it
> with research.
>
> Anyway, ignoring multiple column requirements and that pesky
> print-versus-online thing, here's what a quick search on the Web found:
>
>    - 50 to 60 characters per line
>    http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability
>    - 66 characters per line http://webtypography.net/2.1.2
>    - 95 characters per line
>    https://viget.com/inspire/the-line-length-misconception
>    - 9-12 words per line
>
> http://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-2/text-typography/length-column-width
>    - Looking at the 8,5x5,5 document I have up, I use about 70 characters,
>    10 words, 4.125 inches.
>    - Looking at an A4-designed doc I set up, I use about 80 characters, 15
>    words, 4.75 inches.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sean
>
> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 11:20 PM, Di <dicorrie -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > I have a new manager with a sales background.
> >
> > He was writing a document.
> >
> > I saw that he had taken our standard template for long documents, and
> > removed the indent on the body text. So the document had virtually no
> left
> > or right margins and the length of line was almost the entire width of an
> > A4 page.
> >
> > I protested. Seven years I have been telling the staff why it is
> important
> > to leave the indent in and keep the length of a line to about the width
> of
> > a person's eyes.
> >
> > He explained. That's because you write documents that people need to
> read.
> > This is a sales document. Sales documents are judged on the number of
> > pages.
> >
> > I could not think of a suitable answer.
> >
> > I know that in responding to an rfp it is very important that the sales
> > team use the formats that have been given. But this was not one of those,
> > and his argument was a new one on me.
> >
> >
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-- 
Kathleen MacDowell
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
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