Your font size can be smaller than you think.

While courts often require 12-point (and sometimes even 14-point) fonts, it’s not the most comfortable size for reading. If you hold up a court document next to the average book, magazine, or newspaper, you’ll notice that the printing on the court filing is a lot larger.

The legibility of a font is tied not only to its size, but also the resolution of the output device. For instance, computer screens are relatively low-resolution—about 100 dots per inch—so the smallest comfortable reading size is about 12 points. (This was the default size of every font on the original Macintosh, which may be why 12-point became something of a standard in computer typesetting.)

But a document from a laserprinter is likely to contain about 600 dots per inch—36 times as many dots as a computer screen—so text is readable at smaller sizes. On professionally typeset materials, like publications and stationery, the font can be even smaller. Text on business cards is often set at only 7 or 8 points.

If you’re making a template for letterhead or other internal documents, don’t treat 12-point as the minimum. Try sizes down to 10-point, including intermediate sizes like 10.5-point and 11.5-point.

Also bear in mind that the point system is not an absolute scale—different fonts set to the same point size may not appear the same size on the page. For instance, the two fonts below—Sabon on the left, Arno on the right—are set at the same point size, but the Arno is still smaller.

Thus, when trying out a new font, let your eyes be the guide, not the point size. You can match sizes by printing out a sample of text in the old font, and then adjusting the size of the new font on screen until each line of text breaks in roughly the same place.