What is the smallest font size you can read? Without a magnifying glass, of course.

Reading glasses or not, some fonts can be very hard to read. When it comes to readability of text, different attributes like the style, color and size make the design more or less visible.

To understand which typeface or visual text design suits your work better, understanding typography might make it easier. In the world of typography, there are two main categories – serif and sans serif.

According to Skillshare, serif lettering has an extra line, “kind of like a little foot,” that extends at the ends of letters. Georgia and Times are two examples of serif fonts. On the other hand, sans serif fonts lack the extra lines – “sans” meaning “without” in French. Examples are Helvetica and Arial.

But how small of text can we read? We took a closer look: 

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What is the smallest font size you can read?

According to professional print service Quality Logo Products and Same Day Printing, the smallest font size used for promotional or printed items is 6pt which is equivalent to 0.6mm+. If the font’s any smaller, you might need to zoom in to read the print, the service says.

However, according to an online printing service Jukebox, “there isn’t a single answer to determine the smallest font size that can be used in every design.” Jukebox suggests a few factors that must be considered in a design: font style, line weight or thickness, printing process, legibility and final print size.

Line thickness matters when it comes to choosing a font size that’s legible, especially for physical printing. Same Day Printing recommends a minimum line thickness of 0.25pt to 0.5pt as it makes up the thickness or width of each individual line from the letter.

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