serif fonts

A serif font contains serifs—tiny projections or “tails” at the ends of the strokes in a letter. A typical example is Times New Roman. A font like Arial, which does not have serifs, is called a sans serif font (from the French word sans, meaning “without”).

In print documents, serif fonts tend to be used for the body of the text, and sans serif fonts for titles or headings.

The conventional claim has been that serif fonts are more legible in print documents, whereas sans serif fonts are more legible on computer screens, which have a much lower resolution. However, there is no conclusive evidence to bear out this belief. Some studies seem to indicate that there is no difference in legibility between the two font types.

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