Which Font is Easiest to Read in 6-Point?

I recently had a good reason to ask which font is easiest to read in 6-point. One of my grad school professors allowed me to use cheat sheets on his final exam this week. The rule was: Put anything you want on 1 sheet of paper, both sides; no other materials are allowed.

The professors' intent was probably for students to put a few equations on the page, but of course we students saw a lot more potential than that. I decided to put all of my class notes on the page, if possible.

I created a Word document with two columns per page, and the smallest font I could read. 6-point seems to be my limit.

But I wondered: which font is most readable at 6-point?

Which Font is Easiest to Read in 6-Point?

I had heard that sarif fonts are the easiest to read (regardless of the size). I looked at a non-sarif font and a sarif font in 6-point and, sure enough, the sarif font was much easier on the eyes. See for yourself by comparing Calibri to Times New Roman in your word processor. Calibri does not have sarifs and requires some careful reading in this 6-point size. Times New Roman, thanks to its sarifs, is pretty easy to read, even when it is quite small.

I happened to be reading a book called Self-Publishing Fiction by Gavin Sinclair, which included a discussion of various fonts for use in published books. It described Garamond as follows: "Its open, round letters are very readable. It also has the benefit of taking up less room than most other fonts." [Source: Sinclair, Gavin. Self-Publishing Fiction: From manuscript to bookstore and beyond, Mainland Press: 2005, page 37].

The "taking up less room" phrase caught my attention, so I gave Garamond a try. I cannot say definitely that it is absolutely the easiest font to read, but compared to the other fonts I tried it was exceptionally readable. In fact, I bet I could have gone even smaller than 6-point without losing readability.

I successfully included an abbreviated version of my class notes and a couple sample problems on one sheet of paper. Needless to say, the test went well. I will definitely be using Garamond in the future. I wonder if my professor realizes that his whole graduate-level course fits on one piece of paper.

Sources

Sinclair, Gavin. Self-Publishing Fiction: From manuscript to bookstore and beyond, Mainland Press: 2005.