My print background has shaped my taste in text layout, but for some reason it’s not shared by a multitude of designers around the world. Now tell me, do you also think that the typesetting in the first image is ridiculously wide and unreadable? Unfortunately, every second website is like this now.
The width of the column is inseparably linked to the font size. The ideal width for typesetting is about 55 to 75 characters. Not 150, like in the first image.
Leading is a function of point size, line length, and format. The longer the line in terms of word count, the greater the leading should be. Usually, it is a few points (2-5) more than the font size, depending on the font and the width of the text. For extreme widths (75 characters), you can confidently increase the leading up to +10pt (max) to make it easier to read. Or you can multiply by 1.2…1.3 for the web — for the majority of sizes it will look neat and pleasant. 1.2 for narrow setting (55 characters), 1.3 – for wide (75 characters).
The ratio of line length to leading should be about 25. In my example, it’s 900px / 25 = 36px – that’s the leading. Dividing by 1.3, we get ~29px. This is the font size.
In Word, there are no pixels, there it’s width in centimeters, and font size is in points. To understand which font is ideal, you need to convert the typesetting width (let’s say, 16 cm) to points by multiplying by 28.3 (which gives 452pt), and then divide by 25 (which gives 18pt). This is the leading. To find the font size, divide by 1.2, giving 15pt. I attach the result as the third image.
Here’s a good calculator with a preview of the result:
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 