A body font is a quiet worker. It might not be the first thing a reader notices when glancing over a book page, yet it dominates a large portion of the reading experience. If the type feels tight, too decorative, too light, or too busy, the page becomes hard to work with, even if the text itself is engaging. For a first book layout, don’t worry about selecting the most eye-catching font. Instead, aim for a typeface that allows an entire paragraph to rest comfortably on the page.
Start your body font search using actual body text, not just a title or a short excerpt. A typeface can appear lovely in one sentence and become disagreeable when you read ten pages of it. Load several paragraphs of sample body text into your layout program, fix your trim size, and display the text as a two-page spread. This is important because we don’t read a book from a single text box. Margins, gutter widths, line lengths, leading, and the space between paragraphs all alter the way a typeface reads.
Generally speaking, a decorative font is more suitable for display type, chapter openings, or small accents than it is for body text. Extended reading requires letterforms that are stable and recognizable. Take a close look at the lowercase characters, since body text consists mainly of lowercase letters. If the shapes of a, e, c, and o appear nearly identical, or if the letters seem too condensed, it will be difficult for your reader to make them out. A readable font should enable your reader to distinguish your words while simultaneously not making your page look robotic or bland.
Font size is part of the typeface decision, not an isolated one. Some fonts will be large enough at 10 point, whereas other typefaces need 11 point to appear legible. Put together a short block of text at two or three font sizes and review them on the page. Next, experiment with your leading. If the lines of your paragraph sit too close together, particularly with tight margins, it will feel compressed. Conversely, if they sit too far apart, the rhythm will be disrupted and the page will feel untidy. The right setting usually appears even without looking fancy.
Line length is another metric to evaluate. If your column is too wide, the eyes will travel too far, and your reader may lose his place. If it is too narrow, your page will suffer from excessive line breaks, and your text will appear overly hyphenated. Rather than blaming your font, try adjusting the margins first. A slight change in your gutter, outside margin, or the width of your text box will make the same typeface much more readable. This is why your body font testing ought to be conducted on a full spread, not in a blank text frame.
An effective method is to typeset the same paragraph in three different typefaces and export them as a PDF. Resist the temptation to pick one immediately because it’s the prettiest. Read all the typeset paragraphs carefully. Note where your eyes pause, whether the line endings seem odd, and what the paragraph colors are on the page. Here, paragraph color isn’t referring to the ink tone; it refers to the overall gray color created when the letterforms, line spacings, and lines of text work in unison.
When your body font passes this test, make sure that the rest of the book design doesn’t compete with it. In fact, try using fewer font variations to begin with. Give your chapter openers, headers, page numbers, cutlines, and headings each a purpose, but let them remain subservient to your typeface. A sign that you’re getting it right is that you can glance at a two-page spread and immediately determine where the body text starts and stops, where your navigational devices are, and where you’re highlighting certain words, all without having to squint to figure out which is which. Now, before moving forward and working on your book cover and export settings, return to your body text once again. Here’s the big question: if you were to turn through twenty pages, would the reader still feel that this text is a comfortable read?