Suggestions for better text readability

  • Hello. This is regarding BigRockInvestmets.com.

    I feel the text appearance for the pages is ok, but I find the blog posts (under the News heading or Latest News widget) are difficult to read. I’m not sure if the font is smaller or what, but I’d like to make the blog post pages more readable. Right now I feel that in its current appearance it gives the impression of a ‘chore’ to read instead of ‘welcoming’ the reader to finish the post. It’s tiring and boring on the eyes and I want to change that immediately.

    I’m interested in hearing what suggestions the WP community has. Changes in text appearance? Changing the background behind the text somehow? Please be specific and provide examples if you can.

    I appreciate your suggestions. Thank you.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    One thought is to make the background of the text part white – but just the part where the text goes. How could I do this?

    I could not open your site: BigRockInvestmets.com

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    Sorry — BigRockInvestments.com

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    I’m specifically referencing the blog posts like the Probate post I uploaded today

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    Any thoughts on this?

    Here’s a link that actually works: bigrockinvestments.com

    Now that that’s out of the way…

    I made three changes, and it became much more readable for me:

    • Changed font-size to 14px
    • Changed line-height to 25px
    • Changed text-align to left

    I then found it much easier to read, but that’s just me.

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    Thanks a lot for the work on this, Tim. Would you mind leading me to the right php and lines for me to look at these changes? I thought I had it, but the changes I made had no effect. Thank you.

    You’ll actually want to change it in style.css. I made the changes in .entry p, which starts around line 444 or so.

    Add the following:

    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 25px;
    text-align: left;

    I was just changing it in Firebug while looking at one page of the site, so you’ll definitely want to look through your site carefully after making those changes, just to be sure it doesn’t mess anything else up.

    Let me know if that’s not clear at all.

    Yeah, bigger text. I like font-size: 14px too, but x-large or 120% or 150% works too. I think generally speaking most sites have text that’s too small these days.

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    Thanks, guys. I’ve played with some changes but unfortunately it’s messing up elements elsewhere. I’ll have to figure out how to change just the blog posts and leave the text elsewhere alone. My other thought is to somehow find a way to have the text on a white box of some sort, like a white background that sits just behind the blog text but doesn’t interfere with the rest of the site (i.e. it conforms to the length of each blog post).

    For your footer, I suggest that you play around with some of the code below, also think about the Cufon text replace for replacing the navigation and headers.

    CSS for footer text:
    text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px #000;

    Cufon Text Replacement

    Thread Starter michaelborger

    (@michaelborger)

    Ok, so instead of trying to mess with CSS and figure out what my site developers did, I installed the Google Web Fonts plugin. After some testing, I think I’ve decided on the Droid Sand font. How does it look? Any easier on the eyes?

    Footer: I’m looking into the Cufon stuff…

    Awesome, the Cufon might be hard to work with at first, but easy once you get the hang of it, I can assist if you have any questions.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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