What are the good/bad typography for making presentation slides?

Question

Writing using LaTeX I have known that using vertical line in table is bad typography.

Is there any good/bad typography for slides so that newbie can follow these?

You can provide some well-known documentation on this.

Answer 1

• I do distinguish between typography recommendations and general recommendations for presentations (e. g. Don't read from the slides, use images, and so on).
• I understand typography in this context very narrow (e. g. which font to choose).
• I recommend and others (e. g. Mico, see here) to use sans serif fonts that are wide and dark.
• If you use serif fonts than the serifs are sometimes too this too thin for the limited resolution of presentation devices (compared to a print on paper).
• In addition, I think that sans serif fonts are in general easier too read off screens. As far as I know, most operating systems use sans serif fonts.
• I made three little examples to make my case :).
• In addition, I think that a so-called large x-height is also beneficial when it comes to readability. (The same is true when writing on a flip chart.)

---

\documentclass{beamer}

%% 1. Serif Font
\usefonttheme{serif}

%%% 2. Normal Sans Serif Font
%\usepackage{newtxsf}

%%% 3. Wide and Dark Sans Serif Font
%\usefonttheme{professionalfonts}
%\usepackage{arev}

\begin{document}
% ---
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Serif Font}
%
\begin{block}{Text Example}
This is a simple text example. This is how text looks like.
\end{block}
%
\begin{equation}
\text{e}^{\text{i}y} = \cos(y) + \text{i} \sin(y)
\end{equation}
%
\end{frame}
% ---

% ---
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Normal Sans Serif Font}
%
\begin{block}{Text Example}
This is a simple text example. This is how text looks like.
\end{block}
%
\begin{equation}
\text{e}^{\text{i}y} = \cos(y) + \text{i} \sin(y)
\end{equation}
%
\end{frame}
% ---

% ---
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Wide and Dark Sans Serif Font}
%
\begin{block}{Text Example}
This is a simple text example. This is how text looks like.
\end{block}
%
\begin{equation}
\text{e}^{\text{i}y} = \cos(y) + \text{i} \sin(y)
\end{equation}
%
\end{frame}
% ---
\end{document}

---

Reaction to the comment

Not well known but maybe a start to get the right search terms for a Google search :).

The old usability guideline for online typography was simple: stick to sans-serif typefaces. Because computer screens were too lousy to render serifs properly, attempting serif type at body-text sizes resulted in blurry letter shapes. [...] In 1996, Microsoft's fabled typography group introduced Verdana as one of the first fonts designed explicitly to improve on-screen text legibility. (Found here.)