Typography for reports: choosing and setting type

Typography for reports is the set of decisions about which fonts you use and how you set them: size, spacing, line length, headings and emphasis. Readers rarely notice good type. They notice bad type at once, as tiring pages, cramped tables and headings that all look alike.

Most of a report is body text, so that is where to start. Butterick's Practical Typography makes the point that body text deserves the most attention because it makes up most of a document.¹ Get the paragraphs right first, then design the headings, captions, tables and cover around them. A striking cover does little for a report whose findings are hard to read.

When choosing fonts, start with readability rather than personality. Section508.gov, the US federal accessibility resource, notes that sans serif type matters most for body text and fluid reading, while serif fonts are acceptable for headings or emphasis.² GOV.UK guidance on accessible documents goes further and recommends a sans serif font such as Arial or Helvetica, at a minimum size of 12 points.³

Not everyone agrees on defaults. Butterick advises buying a professional font where possible and, if you must use a system font, choosing carefully and avoiding Times New Roman and Arial.¹ The two views are less opposed than they look: both favour a clear, well-made typeface over a decorative one.

In our own practice, we also check three practical points before committing to a font: that it includes every accented character needed for French, Kinyarwanda or Kiswahili editions, that it has enough weights for headings and tables, and that its licence covers both print and digital use.

Font pairing is where many reports go wrong, usually by adding too much. Butterick's rule of thumb is that most documents can tolerate a second font, few can tolerate a third, and almost none can tolerate four or more.⁴ For a report, one font for body text and one for headings is usually enough.

Any two fonts can be mixed if they are identifiably different, and lower contrast between fonts can work better than high contrast.⁴ A practical approach is to pair a readable sans serif for body text with a serif or a heavier weight of the same family for headings. Using one family with several weights is the simplest pairing of all, and it keeps tables, charts and captions consistent.

For print, Butterick puts the most comfortable range for body text at 10 to 12 point, and 15 to 25 pixels on the web.¹ He recommends line spacing of 120 to 145 percent of the point size.¹ Accessibility guidance tends towards the upper end. A dyslexia friendly style guide from Ako Aotearoa suggests font sizes of 12 to 14 points or larger, and notes that line spacing of 1.5 can help.⁵

Watch the small print. Section508.gov warns that running text below 9 point, such as a long footnote, creates a barrier.² Footnotes, chart labels and table text should stay readable, not shrink to fit.

On screen, readers may change spacing themselves. WCAG 2.2 says content should still work when people increase line height to 1.5 times the font size, paragraph spacing to twice the font size, letter spacing to 0.12 times and word spacing to 0.16 times.⁶ Avoid fixed text boxes that cut off text when this happens.

As a starting point for most reports, these settings summarise the guidance above:

• Body text in print: 10 to 12 point, or 12 point and above for accessible editions.
• Body text on screen: 15 to 25 pixels.
• Line spacing: 120 to 145 percent of the point size, up to 1.5 for accessible editions.
• Footnotes, chart labels and table text: never below 9 point.

Long lines are tiring to read, and short ones break up the sentence. Butterick recommends an average of 45 to 90 characters per line.¹ WCAG's guidance on visual presentation sets a maximum width of 80 characters for blocks of text, and explains that some people with reading or vision disabilities lose their place on long lines.⁷ On an A4 page this often means two columns or generous margins rather than one wide block.

Align body text to the left. The same WCAG guidance asks for text that is not justified, because the uneven gaps between words in fully justified text can create "rivers of white" running down the page and make reading difficult for some people with cognitive disabilities.⁷ Ragged right edges look less formal, but they are easier to read.

A report needs a clear hierarchy so readers can scan for what matters to them. GOV.UK advises using heading styles such as heading 1 and heading 2, rather than bold text, to mark headings.³ Styles also keep the hierarchy consistent and let you generate a table of contents and an accessible PDF. The Ako Aotearoa guide suggests headings at least 20 percent larger than body text, with extra space around them.⁵

Use emphasis sparingly. GOV.UK recommends sentence case, avoiding all caps and italics, and keeping underlining for links.³ Where emphasis is needed, the dyslexia guide recommends bold rather than italics or underlining.⁵ If everything on a page is highlighted, nothing is.

Type only works if it stands out from its background. Section508.gov points to the WCAG requirement that text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.² Light grey text, text over photographs and pale brand colours often fail this test. The dyslexia guide also recommends single-colour backgrounds and avoiding patterns or pictures behind text.⁵

Finally, plan for how the report will be read. GOV.UK says HTML is the most accessible format for publishing documents and treats a new PDF as a last resort.³ If you publish online, make sure text can be resized up to 200 percent without readers having to scroll sideways to read a line.⁷ Readable fonts, careful spacing and a clear hierarchy carry across into every format.

• One readable font for body text, chosen first
• No more than two fonts, clearly different
• Accented characters and licence checked
• Body text around 10 to 12 point in print
• Line spacing of 120 percent or more
• Lines under about 80 characters, left-aligned
• Heading styles instead of bold text
• Text contrast of at least 4.5:1