Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. Why do you say Courier when leventy-dozen psychological studies show other fonts are more appealing?

Q. Why do you say Courier when leventy-dozen psychological studies show other fonts are more appealing?

A. Your manuscripts may be the final form of your work because no one will ever want to print what you write. If that is the case and you are satisfied with that situation, by all means use any font that pleases you.

Professional writers, on the other hand, expect their manuscripts to be set in type and have to hope that editors will chose an attractive font for the finished work. Readers will not see the manuscript, but will see the work in the font the editor has chosen for it.

I hope you don't mean that you think you can seduce editors by using some wonderful, psychologically appealing typeface. Editors know better, and if your choice of typeface is all your work has going for it, then you have little chance of being published. For a variety of technical reasons, some editors need manuscripts prepared in Courier 10-pitch and all editors can work with such manuscripts.

If your work ends up in the hands of an editor who needs work in Courier 10 but you have prepared it in some proportional font that seems to you attractive, you can bet that the subtle appeal of your font will have no chance of overriding the editor's not-so-subtle annoyance at being presented with an unusable manuscript.

Yes, there are many editors who have no trouble with Times Roman and who may even prefer it. But they can work as easily with Courier. Moreover, those who like Times Roman are likely to work with the material on disk and can change the font, if they wish, with the press of a button. Some editors who want Courier, really need it, and will have to do considerable extra work to deal with other fonts.