STYLE GUIDE

Fonts and text styles

This section describes how text should appear in HYMS documents.

Much of the specific advice in this section is based on the Clear Print guidelines produced by the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Some parts are based on the requirements of the UK Disability Discrimination Act 2005.

The font of choice for HYMS documents is Gill Sans.

Gill Sans is the font used throughout our printed documents. Conveniently, it's also the font used by the University of Hull. If it's not available, Arial or Verdana are suitable alternatives, and Verdana is the font generally used on the web for technical reasons.

All of these fonts are commonly available on both Windows and Macs, which also makes them ideal for communications that might be viewed on both systems, such as web pages and e-mails.

Avoid using light faces unless at a reasonably large font size. Light faces at small sizes can cause difficulties for people with a visual impairment.

If you need a serif font, use Garamond. Times New Roman ('Times' on Macs) is over-used to the point of cliché, and it doesn't sit well alongside sans serif fonts. Avoid it unless you really have no alternative.

• Examples of acceptable and unacceptable fonts

Use a minimum text size of 12 points.

Printed normally, 12-point Gill Sans has an x-height of about 2.3mm. This may seem rather large, but in fact it's the smallest size recommended for readability by people who are visually impaired.

For long, in-depth documents, detailed lists or academic texts, it may be appropriate to use a slightly smaller size.

If your document is going to be available to the public, you must include a note advising that you will supply a large-print version on request (and put your note in large print, obviously).

There are some other situations in which you may choose to use a font size smaller than 12 points. For instance:

• for long strings which only make sense if they fit onto one line, such as web addresses and examples of code
• for common, non-content elements on each page, such as repeated headers and footers.

Watch out for the digit '1'.

The down-side of Gill Sans is that the digit for 'one' is just a stick, utterly indistinguishable from lower-case 'L' and capital 'i'. Ordinarily, this doesn't lead to much confusion, but in some situations mistaking one for the other can be disastrous. Imagine the e-mail address 'll111@york.ac.uk' rendered in Gill Sans, for instance.

It's sometimes useful (although fiddly) to render the digit '1' in a different font to make it clearer. Lucida Sans is the one used in the example below.

Use bold text for emphasis and for headings, but use it sparingly.

Bold text is clearest. Underlining should be reserved for e-mail and web addresses, never for headings or emphasis. Italics can be difficult for visually impaired people. If you must use italics, make sure you're using a font such as Gill Sans where the italic face is just a slanted version of the plain face. This is not the case with many serif fonts. And don't touch block capitals with a bargepole!

Avoid handwriting fonts and other ornate styles.

Over-ornate fonts cause difficulties for dyslexic people. They also make it difficult for the text to be machine-read, a technology often used by visually impaired people. And as if that isn't enough, they look dreadful.

If you must use a font in a specific situation to simulate handwriting, for example in a pre-filled exercise in a student workbook, choose something simple, perhaps even Comic Sans. It might be overused to the point of cliché, but it is particularly clear, especially for dyslexic people.

Avoid long strings of block capitals.

A few words in block capitals are OK in repeated page elements – see the the header on this page, for instance. But long strings of block capitals reduce reading speed and they can cause problems for visually impaired people. Use sentence case (capital at start, lower case for the rest) instead.

Never, ever use block capitals in an ornate font. You don't have to be visually impaired to find that difficult to read.

Maintain good contrast – black on white is best.

Actually, deep blue on bright yellow is the optimum colour scheme if all you're interested in is good visual contrast, but it looks hideous. Black on white is just fine. White on black also works well if the text is bold enough, though it can be a bit heavy on the toner.

Avoid light grey on white, and avoid any arrangement where your text is a different shade of the same colour as its background (for instance, dark green on light green).

Use left-align to format text, leaving a ragged right margin.

Fully justified text alters the spaces between words. This can cause difficulties for people who are visually impaired.

Leave plenty of space between columns (the 'gutter width').

Left-aligning helps with this too. If spacing is tight, add a vertical line to separate the columns.

Position common page elements consistently.

Keep page numbers, headers and footers in exactly the same place on each page, to aid navigation.

Once upon a time, it was fashionable to omit the page number on the first page of each new chapter or section. This was bizarre, because the reader was more likely to be looking for those pages by number than for any other page. Don't do it.