Got Gothic?

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rose
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Got Gothic?

Post by rose » July 20th, 2010, 9:54 pm

My partner and are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and expect that we will soon be ready to complete copies of our manuscript by the end of the summer. Some of these hard copies will go to members of our current crit group, in gratitude for their support through the previous rounds of e-version revisions (e-visions?) and some of them will go to new beta readers.

In looking ways to reduce the printing costs for this cycle, I have found that Century Gothic is the most economical font choice. It looks ok to me on the screen and in print. Has anyone read much text in this font? Would it be an acceptable font choice for this next cycle or is it likely to cause eyestrain after the first 50 pages?

BTW, the source for the above tidbit of knowledge is
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/05/09 ... ifference/

rose
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Mira
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by Mira » July 23rd, 2010, 1:29 pm

Unless it's prohibitively more expensive, have you thought about using Times New Roman? I think that is the font used by agents. It's possible they use Courier as well - you could check. Nathan wrote a blog about type to use. There's something to be said about having beta-readers read the text in a font that agents will as well.

Either way, congrats on being ready for the next step! That's very cool. :)

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Quill
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by Quill » July 23rd, 2010, 2:12 pm

On my MS Word program Century Gothic takes up more space than Times New Roman.

Mira, Times New Roman is supplanting Courier as the font of choice in submissions, although either is still acceptable (and none other) by most agents, as far as I know.

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polymath
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by polymath » July 23rd, 2010, 2:55 pm

While Century Gothic consumes less ink, it consumes more paper from having wider glyphs than traditional sans serif monospace typefaces like Courier, which are monospace pitched. Cost-wise, it's probably a wash. Century Gothic is visually more pleasing to the eye than Arial for it's broader glyphs, however.

An issue I see with Century Gothic is it's a sans serif typeface. Reading on paper is less straining to the eye than digital. Serif typefaces on paper are less eyestraining than sans serif. Saving a buck at the expense of readers' eyestrain seems to me counter to the purpose of engaging reader rapport.

Courier is a slab serif typeface, which doesn't necessarily consume more ink per average glyph than Century Gothic. Courier yields sixty-five glyphs per Standard Manuscript Format line regardless of keystoke, letter, nonalpha character, or word space.

Century Gothic, being a proportional typeface, yields a variable number of glyphs per SMF line. Capped M and W, for instance, yield forty-three and forty-one glyphs per SMF line respectively. Lowercase I yields two hundred sixteen as do periods and commas. Lowecase O yields fifty-nine. Lowercase E, the most frequent letter glyph, also yields fifty-nine. In other words, an average number of Century Gothic glyphs is fifty-nine per SMF line; therefore, a proportional pitch typeface like Century Gothic will likely consume more paper than a monospace typeface, depending, of course, on diction: punctuation frequency and word and sentence length, which either force soft returns and more raggedy right margins, or contrarily, cram more words into a line than monospace typefaces.

Courier typefaces, in my considered and practiced opinion, are the most economical and the least eyestraining for SMF printer output. The one overriding writer-critiquer benefit from Courier is inline markup. Its ample glyph spacing allows for more white space than most other typefaces. If a manuscript is circulated in print for commentary, it will likely be marked on, or at least ought to be by conscientious critquers.

Times New Roman is also a proportional typeface; however, it is a serif typeface, consumes more ink than Century Gothic or Courier, consumes less paper than Century Gothic or Courier--averages 70-ish glyphs per SMF line, probably a cost wash--and more closely resembles general reader comfort zone published output than Courier's deprecated, yet amply white spaced, typewritten appearance.
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rose
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by rose » July 23rd, 2010, 9:32 pm

Thank you, Polymath.

When Townsend Brown took off into arcane and detailed world descriptions of the world as he saw it, wife Josephine would gaze at him admiringly and say "Isn't he wonderful?" You often inspire the same reaction in me. I can't tell you how much appreciate the time and thought you put into your replies.

I see your point about paper use vs. ink consumption. Yes, it is probably a wash. I am thinking that perhaps we will providing a double-spaced ms in Courier to those readers who will (we hope) continue to provide line edits and single or 1.5 spaced copies in Times NR to the beta readers who (we hope) will give us broad gut reactions to the story and characters.

rose
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polymath
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by polymath » July 23rd, 2010, 10:08 pm

You're welcome, rose.

I know the arcana of printmaking in all its splendor and complications. I was an apprentice to one of the last colonial master printers still plying commercial job trade. I noted his business dropped when IBM came out with the '66 Selectric typewriter, copyshops sprouting up all around, and eventually desktop publishing spelled the end of his noble profession, circa 1992. His platen press, proof press, paper and book trimmer, bindery equipment, linotype setter, and cold lead type cases, all the arcane equipment of the trade sold in lots at auction to museums and arts and crafts schools and university programs. I died a little.
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Mira
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by Mira » July 24th, 2010, 4:31 pm

Quill - thanks. Good to know.

polymath - you are a wonder.

rose
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by rose » July 24th, 2010, 11:12 pm

Mira, it always makes me smile to see your happy posts on Nathan's Open Thread day. He should change its name in your honor. <g> And thank you for the congratulations up thread. We will still be Nose/Grindstone for sometime yet, but we have turned the third act corner, and our speed will pick up a bit now.

Quill, as you can tell, I have grand ambitions for the pretty print stage, but truthfully, I will probably just squeak in under my self-imposed deadline with only one hard copy version the give to readers and critiquers alike, although I hate giving beta readers a double-spaced copy. I'd rather they cry at the story elements, not at the sight of the many-paged document they agreed to read.

Polymath, that was a Gutenbergian catastrophe! I hope all of his equipment went to loving and appreciative homes.

rose.
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Riders on the Rez http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35697
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Mira
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by Mira » July 27th, 2010, 11:12 pm

Rose, that was the sweetest compliment. Thank you. :) I wish I could say I was this happy all the time! Nathan's blog and forums tend to bring out my happy kid.

Slow and steady is just fine. Better good and careful than rush things, imho. Good luck! :)

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polymath
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by polymath » July 28th, 2010, 12:40 am

rose wrote:Polymath, that was a Gutenbergian catastrophe! I hope all of his equipment went to loving and appreciative homes.

rose.
It did. One of my acquaintances went to a printmaking workshop where the printing press ended up. The printing lore of the master I retain. I liked his anecdotes more than anyone else in the shop. He'd drop them like bait for me to nibble on. It's surprising how much of printing lore survives as metaphors in contemporary language.

Cut to the chase, meaning skip proof printing and proofreading, a rushed job; long since preempted by Hollywood. An illustration is worth a thousand words, meaning an illustration earned the illustrator the equivalent of one thousand published words.

Proofreading. A proof is a printout done of a galley on a proofing press before locking up in the chase to check for accuracy and nondisrcetionary typesetting errors. In other words, the proofreader looks over a proof before a client, who then approves or disapproves, if approved, then signed as proof the client accepted the type as set. Any following changes to the type are at the client's expense and responsibility. Case, the cabinet or cabinet drawer cold lead type is stored in and set from.

Stick it, meaning set type in a compositor's stick. Slugline, a hot lead line of type set on a linotype machine. The Merganthaler machine I worked on set a slugline up to forty-eight picas wide. Dingbat, lately a graphic digital text typeface, also cold and hot lead cases of graphic art nonce characters for bordering a galley so press pressure equalizes across type set in a non rectangular shape, thus avoiding mashing type at the edges, originally a batten laid across wet clay incised by scribes to prevent dinging the soft surface of the clay while writing. I could go on and on.
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rose
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Re: Got Gothic?

Post by rose » July 28th, 2010, 2:52 pm

How wonderful for a Master Printer to have an apprentice who soaked up every bit of knowledge he had to offer. If only Archie Bunker had known what he was saying when he called Edith a Dingbat:

Dingbat, lately a graphic digital text typeface, also cold and hot lead cases of graphic art nonce characters for bordering a galley so press pressure equalizes across type set in a non rectangular shape, thus avoiding mashing type at the edges, originally a batten laid across wet clay incised by scribes to prevent dinging the soft surface of the clay while writing.

I had no idea where the name of the Dingbat Font came from. It just seemed to be an appropriate name for the sillies. But how on earth did it ever transition from printing to common use, I wonder?

rose
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Riders on the Rez http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35697
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