Grid
Inter for everything, set unindented with space between paragraphs rather than an indent, because that is how a document meant to be scanned and written on wants to be set. On a large trim size with a wide measure this is the only theme here that does not fight the format.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago … having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway, and she said nothing at all for a long while.
Use it for
Workbooks, journals, manuals, planners, reference printed at 8.5 × 11.
Do not use it for
Anything read from beginning to end. A sans face over three hundred pages of prose is harder work than a serif, and the research on that is old and settled.
What it decides
- Text face
- Inter, neo-grotesque sans, by Rasmus Andersson.
- Size and leading
- 10 pt on 15.0 pt (1.50×). Adjustable; this is where it starts.
- Paragraph indent
- None. Paragraphs are separated by space instead, which suits a book that is scanned rather than read straight through.
- Chapter opening
- Set left, sunk 12% down the text block, numbered in arabic figures, under a rule.
- Scene break
- White space alone, the gentlest break there is, and the one that never interrupts the reading.
- Running head
- The book title on the left-hand page, the chapter title on the right.
- Page number
- At the head, on the outer edge. Roman in the front matter, restarting at arabic 1 on the first chapter.
About the typeface
Inter is a neo-grotesque sans, drawn by Rasmus Andersson. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows it to be embedded in a document, including one you sell, without restriction or attribution in the book itself. The licences page reproduces the full text.
The print PDF embeds a subset of it, only the characters your book actually uses, so a three-hundred-page interior comes to a couple of megabytes rather than ten. The EPUB does not embed it by default, because an ebook reader has chosen their own face and size, often for their eyesight, and overriding that is the most damaging thing an ebook stylesheet can do. There is a switch if you want it anyway.
See your own book in Grid
Open a Word file and switch between all eight designs in a click. Free, nothing uploaded.
Format a book →