Pleasures of Design

Line length

The human eye can most comfortable read a line of 7 to 10 words (about 50–65 characters, allowing one character space). Anything much longer will get very tiring and the reader may give up. Extra leading can help but it is better to avoid very long lines wherever possible.

The eye can accept fairly short lines more readily but it helps it the text is broken up into relatively brief, digestible passages as in a newspaper.

more ... Typesetting ... Part 4