Typefaces that work well with aged eyes.

[Solly]

Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts. Dustin's suggestion of Iowan Old Style appears to be the most pleasing and comfortable for my eyes. I am using 16pt and 1% line spacing. 

 

I thought I would like Baskerville after looking at some typography texts, but the screen display was not as pleasing as the printed page.

 

The only puzzle remaining is why Iowan Old Style does not appear in the Font Book tool or as a choice in any font chooser other than the one for Accordance. Solving this will entertain me for an hour or so. 

 

Well, that did not take an hour! It appears to be a High Sierra problem as the OS and Apple tools will not recognize the font, but non-apple tools may recognize the font.  Perhaps this will be resolved in a  macOS update. I am just happy that Accordance, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Photo recognize it.

 

—Joseph

Edited March 29, 2018 by Solly

[Julia Falling]

If you want to get a font you have on your Mac onto your iPad and iPhone, try the app, AnyFont. We’ve used it successfully.

 

As far as background color goes, I really dislike stark white - probably my cataracts, made more annoying by astigmatism. I prefer pale blue or green, and grayed down just a bit.

 

What I’ve found works best for me is a font that is relatively wide for its height. The other issue is leading. I go with 25-30. I used Verdana for years, but have recently switched to a font with serifs - just more pleasing aesthetically.