I haven’t been able to read Chess Life for several years because the text size is too small. Any chance to get them to double the font sizes therein?!
Double them? Not likely, given the cost of paper. Unless there’s a large-print edition available (and that’s what you’re asking for – the difference between 10 point and 20 point is the difference between this and [size=200]this[/size]), your only likely recourse is either a magnifier or the zoom function of the online reader.
I was referring to the paper & ink magazine.
I understood that to be the case. Which is why I suggested the magnifier.
Not very practical. I have a Sherlock Holmes magnifying lens when I want to see something very tiny but it’s not practical for reading magazines. I use reading eyeglasses for newspapers and magazines, but the small type in Chess Life is nevertheless always a strain - so I seldom bother to make the effort. Other chess magazines have been published with larger type and I particularly recall Ken Smith’s old productions. Chess Life has also had a reasonable size type in the past but that went down the drain with the current editor.
What do you suggest that the Chess Life editor should do when ordered to cut the number of pages in the magazine? Decrease font or cut content. Take your pick.
Cut content and unnecessary waste-of-space graphics. I like nice big pictures and photos too, but it’s better to say half as much and make it easily legible.
FWIW, I don’t read mags like Time either anymore, because they also cut their type size too small, and recently unsubscribed from my local newspaper for the same reason. So all paper & ink publishers are in the same quandary. That’s their decision, and mine not to waste my valuable eyesight.
What I’d probably do with Chess Life is move the Tournament Life section and some of the more technical analysis intended only for GMs online, and use that gained space to increase type size and legibility of what remains. In other words “dumb down” the mag towards the level of the average chess player.
If you’re saying you want to return to the days of overcrowded pages – skinny margins, few pictures and almost no white space – I emphatically vote against it. There’s a term for that in the publishing industry: “gray.” Gray is not “easily legible”; gray causes reader fatigue. Getting rid of the chronic gray is perhaps the single most positive accomplishment of the CL redesign.
Work around would be download the PDF and print at magnification.