A question of fonts

Okay, here's the deal. I'm writing this story, and I was on page seven. Just to see what would happen, I changed the font from Times New Roman to Courier New, and suddenly my story was magically ten pages in length! Then I changed it to Arial and it was eight. Now I don't know how long my story is. Anybody know what the standard font is for, I guess you would say manuscripts, seeing as this is on 8" x 11" paper. Also anybody know how many standard published book pages there are per 8" x 11" page? I bet Jooooolly does...

I'm so drunk I don't even know how to spell 8x11''

Not many novels are published on that scale, though. Or short stories.

I think it's about 1.5 standard pages per 8x11 page.

It'd probably depend on if it was in hardback or paperback too. Paperbacks have a lot more pages...

Yeah, I just stated the obvious.

:cool: oh well

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonI'm so drunk I don't even know how to spell 8x11''

hahahaha can'g lie that made me giggle and then it geeked out my roomie that I was giggling. Way to spread some joy.

The standard is Times New Roman 12 point. However, it's up to the layout artist. Believe it or not, stories, novels...etc are set in different type based on the type of story and how it appeals to the eye. Go pick up a novel and look either in the very front few pages or the last few pages and you will generally see a note explaining what font and what size it was done in.

Almost all stories, manuals, etc... will use a serif type font (Times New Roman, Palatino, Georgia, Courier, etc...) because they are supposed to be easier for your eyes to read than sans serif type fonts (Ariel, Tahoma, Swiss 721, Futura, etc...). Once you decide on whether you want serifs or not, you then need to decide if you want to use a monospaced (all letters have the exact same spacing / each letter takes up the same amount of space) such as Courier (that's why it took up so much more space), or normal spaced font such as Times New Roman.

Originally Posted by: PRSplayaAlmost all stories, manuals, etc... will use a serif type font (Times New Roman, Palatino, Georgia, Courier, etc...) because they are supposed to be easier for your eyes to read than sans serif type fonts (Ariel, Tahoma, Swiss 721, Futura, etc...). Once you decide on whether you want serifs or not, you then need to decide if you want to use a monospaced (all letters have the exact same spacing / each letter takes up the same amount of space) such as Courier (that's why it took up so much more space), or normal spaced font such as Times New Roman.

Yeah, what he said.

Well in the end it never really is your choice (that I've seen). Our English teachers always specified Times New roman as the font to use in anything we typed up. I guess to level the playing field. I'm also guessing that for anything that you would have published it would be the publishers decision as to the font and style of the book. Just my guess though.

OK, as far as I can remember a script (as any other text) used to be written in a typewritter (as many authors still do all they work) so... the "font" used in any typewritter used to be some kind of courier type.

Now... I really can't recall good enough (this is editorial design... I took this class almost 9 years ago and computer design now is different) every page supposed to have the same number of keystrokes in a standart of 8x11 inches, single spaced pages (there was a even a line count of keystrokes including letters and spaces) so at the end you had a page of let's say 30 lines consisting of 90 keystrokes equals 2700 keystrokes.

This was used to know like a raw aproximate of the lenght of a text and this number was used to determine how much space do the lenght of the text was going to take in a design space, cause every font had this sort of index number (a percentage of the lenght of every letter and space depending on the design of the font... that's why your text gets longer and shorter when you change font... that index is embedded in every font used in a computer nowdays) so... in industry standart you are supposed to use a courier type in 12 pts at single space in a 8x11" paper.

Don't get confused... one thing is how long your work is in matter of "author pages" and other is the design and type to be used... if you are going to get publiushed, you'll get a preliminary test and see how long it ends up, but that's the designers work.... so no worries.

Rock on Bro.

Ah, I was writing a book. Then after the 2nd page I gave up...

Don't do as I did.

Originally Posted by: Vendetta.Ah, I was writing a book. Then after the 2nd page I gave up...

Don't do as I did.

I made it up to page three, I think. But it later turned out they sucked, so it all evened out.