What Makes a Puzzle Large Print?
In the world of puzzles, it is often commented that smaller is sometimes seen as better. In terms of display size, that is. Generally this is most true of newspapers, that have little space to play with, and therefore don't want their puzzles to take up too much space.The end result of the above fact is that puzzles are often printed small. And there can be a couple of problems with this. One is for people who have less than perfect eyesight: having to squint at the page can be no fun, and in the worst case, it can stop someone from even being able to solve puzzles at all, which is far from ideal.
The second problem is that it just makes the puzzle fiddlier to solve: if you solve sudoku like many of our readers do, then you'll know the practical problem of having a small square in which to write all the options: this soon gets messy as you rub out as you go along and can make the solve almost impossible to complete or enjoy.
So, to counter this, there are many large print puzzles on the market. But what counts as large print? It seems there are inconsistencies in this. All we can do is tell you what WE consider to be true large print:
Firstly, the font size must be at least 16pt, and in a readable font too. Now, this has several implications. In a crossword puzzle, this means we print the clue number in the grid AND the clues AND the letters in the solution grids at at least 16 point font. However, what many find is that either the numbers in the grid, the clues or the solutions are printed at a smaller font: to be useful, a true Large Print title must have all text at 16pt or higher, as it is all important to the person solving the puzzle.
The second key criteria with a large print title is that the text should be clear black on white, and printed sharply on good quality paper. All our books are printed just like this, with deep black font on crisp white paper, perfect for solving and providing the necessary contrast.
Thirdly, the lines should be a certain width that they are thick enough to be easily seen - typically, as with our books, they should be at least 1 point in thickness.
Finally, for those wondering what a point is (pt), it is a measurement used in typesetting and is about 0.35mm.
If you have any questions about large print or need help typesetting, creating or converting a large print title, please do contact us and we'll help as best we can.
Large Print Puzzles
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