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Guidelines for Laying Out a Document

A good document pays attention to the layout of the document. In the following, we will discuss in general terms some of the most important factors affecting the layout of documents.

These guidelines are only a superficial glimpse of a broad topic.

Note

### Expert

The expert on this page is Markus Itkonen. Markus is a graphic designer and doctor of arts, specializing in typography. He is the author of Typografian käsikirja (ISBN 978-952-94-1339-3), which has become a classic study book in Finland, and the fifth edition was published in 2019. Unfortunately the book is not available in English.

Font

The first thing to consider in the document is what font to use in the Normal style.

Fonts are generally divided into two categories, serif and sans-serif, according to whether the font has serifs of the strokes of a letter. Serifs are short lines at the ends of the strokes of a letter. In Word, a typical serif font is **Cambria**, and an example of a sans-serif font is Word's default font **Calibri**. On the left is an example of a serif in the **Cambria** font letter **a**.

If your document is to be read mainly on screen, you should prefer a sans-serif style, which has less detail. A serif font, with its small terminal lines, cannot come to its own on a screen, which is unable to repeat its details. On the other hand, if your document is printed, you can choose a serif font.

Guide

### Readability first and foremost

There is a huge variety of serif and sans-serif fonts. However, the key to choosing a font is that it is readable. Studies have found no definitive rules to determine which font is readable and which is not. So here you have to use your own judgement. So it is essential to pay attention to the readability of your font in the environment in which it will be used.

In the Normal style, the font size should be 9–12 points. In practice, you can compare the size of lowercase letters in the font with its uppercase letters. The font size refers to the sizes of uppercase letters, and if the lowercase letters are very small in relation to the uppercase letters, you should choose a font size closer to 12 points. Here again, the main thing is readability: In one font, 10 points can be quite legible, while another requires 12 points.

Headings

When formatting headings, first decide how many heading levels you need. Start designing from the lowest level of headings and work up from there. So, for example, you first design the Heading 3 style so that it stands out from the body text. You then proceed to Heading 2 style and finally Heading 1 style. However, you should keep the changes to a minimum so that Heading 1 the style does not become too big. Use the same font for all heading levels.

Guide

### How many heading levels?

You should not use more than three heading levels. Additional levels make your document very complicated. You'll also notice that it becomes difficult to distinguish between heading levels by font size and other formatting. If you feel you need a fourth level of headings, consider using a margin heading created by a hanging indentation. (You can't get this to appear in the table of contents without some gimmickry, though.)

You may want to use a different font for headings than for the body text. In this case, you should choose for headings a font that is not too different from the font used for the body text. One good way is to combine serif with sans-serif. If your text is sans-serif, find a serif font that resembles it for your headings.

A traditional way to highlight headings is to put them in bold. You can also distinguish Heading 2 style by italicizing it, for example. This makes it easy to distinguish between the three heading styles.

Vertical spacing is also associated with headings. Visually, a heading should be closer to the text below it (for which it is a heading). We recommend a 1:2 ratio. In practice, this means that if the line spacing is 1.5 lines, 2 lines are left above and 1 line below.

Please note that the heading should not extend over several lines. It would be best if every heading fit on a single line. Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where the heading is two or three lines long. In no case should the heading be four lines long. In this case, it no longer looks like a heading at all and its readability is lost.

If you have to use a multi-line heading, make sure that each line of the heading always contains a meaningful whole or a meaningful pair of words. In practice, it's the human who should decides how the heading is divided into lines, not the computer.

Document layout

The main factors affecting the layout of a document are the widths of the margins and the line spacing used. These and the font size determine the line length in the document.

Line length

Also check your document to see how long the lines stretch. We recommend that the line length should not be less than 35 characters, with a maximum of 90 characters. A good line length for a typical document is 55–60 characters, but in practice many documents have line lengths closer to 90 characters or even more.

Guide

### How many characters are there in a line in my document?

To examine the number of characters in a line in Word, do the following:

Select a line of text in its entirety
Click on the Word Count button in the Proofing group on the Review tab. In the window that opens, you can see the characters in the line at Characters (with spaces).

You can adjust the length of the line by changing the widths of the margins and the size of the font.

Line spacing

Usually the line spacing is 1–4 points larger than the font size. The line spacing is also affected by the length of the line: The longer the lines, the more space should be left between them. If the lines are very short, for example less than 50 characters, the line spacing can be 1 point larger than the font size. But if the line lengths approach 90 characters, the line spacing should be 4 points larger than the font size.

Margins

We recommend using the value Moderate in the Margins menu on the Layout tab. This produces a nice and balanced document.

As customized settings, we could set, for example, Left and Right margin to 1.9 cm, Top margin to 2.03 cm and Bottom margin to 3.05 cm, giving a top to bottom margin ratio of 2:3.

The line spacing should also be in relation to the margins. If you increase the line spacing, you should also consider increasing the left and right margins slightly.