Can You Read Me
Choosing the right typeface for the digital study is a big step. Remember, we’re developing for a computer screen, so things are a little different than producing printed media. Your viewer should not struggle reading the text. The best typeface is the one that no one notices.
Style
Typeface is important for quick comprehension and in print, a ‘serif’ style is normally used for text in the main body. Serifs are the little flares on letters that make printed documents easier to read – on paper. On screen however, a ‘sans-serif’ typeface (without the little flares) is better as it eliminates much of the serif style’s clutter and results in easier-to-read text. That’s not to say you can’t use a serif typeface for your main body text, the choice remains yours.
Titles, sub-titles and section headers should be differentiated from the main text in style as well as size. In this instance, we’ll use ‘serif’ styles for these elements.
Staying with the clean and simple approach, we’ll restrict the number of typefaces to two; one serif and one sans-serif. (OK, three if you use a special typeface on only the title page.) Our two choices for this exercise will be Georgia for the ‘serif’ style and Verdana for the ‘sans-serif’ style. Why those two you ask?
These two typefaces were developed specifically for display on a computer screen. They are also available on both Windows and Macintosh machines and even print reasonably well.
A plain (regular) style typeface is recommended for main body text. For a title, sub-title or section header, bolding is allowed (don’t feel obligated) and for a rarity statement, an italic style may be used.
We’ll not use any fancy text decoration styles, again keeping the example simple. Underlining text in electronic documents has come to signify a hyperlink, so we’ll not use underlines as text decoration but only to indicate hyperlinks.
Size
Type size is important and normally, printed pages use a 12 ‘point’ size for body text. ‘Points’ (pt) are a printer’s measurement for type size and rather than get into a detailed discussion, let’s simply substitute the computer screen type size measurement of pixels. We’ll use a size 12, but in pixels rather than points for the main body text. Other text elements will be either larger or smaller depending on the item we’re working with.
For the sake of clarity and simplicity, we’ll choose 28px for the title (26px if bolded), 20px for the subtitle, 16px for section heads, 12px for body text and table titles, 10px for table column or row titles, item descriptions or captions, and 8px for footer information.
Table, column and row titles may be bolded and centered.
Individual words in our title, sub-title and section heads will be capitalized.
Rarity descriptions will use an italicized typeface.
Warning text for forgeries and similar information will appear in red.
Footer text will be included, but not prominent.
Formatting text in your digital study.
Text Spacing and Justification
Spacing is also a factor in making text easier to read. Distance between lines is critical in many instances, so we’ll designate a standard distance of 1.25 times the normal distance. That will open the text up and allow it to breathe.
Spacing between sentences in modern electronic documents is different than in older typewritten text. We’ll use a single space between sentences.
White space between paragraphs can also provide a sense of clarity and calmness, so a break between paragraphs will be used in our example.
Our text will be justified to both margins. We could also allow the right margin to fall where it may (ragged right) or make it so the text is aligned on the right (ragged left). Right aligned text makes the text difficult to read so it’s not advisable unless there’s a special circumstance. Your preference is the determining factor in text justification.
The only rule I personally have is to ‘never-ever’ center body text as it becomes unreadable or very confusing at best.
Caption lines of text are distinct and complete pieces of information, so centering will look fine and remain comprehensible when they appear as descriptions under images, tables, etc.
Text length is also a concern and very long passages of text should be avoided if possible. Shorter sentences express ideas quickly without confusion.
Tables
Tables will be called ‘tables’ and be sequentially numbered beginning with 1. Each table may have a title, but each should have a caption.
As tables generally contain data points or compare numbers, they should contain clearly legible and appropriately titled columns and rows.
It’s easier to follow the flow of a table if sections are delineated in some fashion. Lines are simple. Strings of little ducks are not so helpful, so we’ll stick to lined tables.
Following these criteria, our text should be readable. 
