Large print
The most-used accessibility provision in any parish, and the one most often improvised on Sunday morning.
In a congregation of eighty, several people cannot comfortably read 10pt type in the light your building actually has. They will not usually say so. They will simply stop joining in the responses, and it will be read as disengagement.
What size
| Size | Called | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 10–11pt | Standard | The ordinary A5 booklet. |
| 14pt | Large print | The RNIB’s recommended minimum for large print. On A4, this is a genuinely usable service sheet. |
| 16–18pt | Giant print | For readers with significant sight loss. Page count roughly doubles again. |
Size is not the whole of it. Contrast matters as much: black on cream or white, never grey on grey, never text over a watermark or a background image. Avoid italic for anything long, and keep the line length shorter than instinct suggests — a very wide line at 14pt is hard to track back.
How many
Four to six for a congregation of eighty is the usual rule of thumb, kept by the door with the ordinary booklets rather than in a separate pile that has to be asked for. Being handed a different-looking booklet after admitting you cannot see is a small indignity that stops people taking one.
Producing it without a second document
The trap is maintaining two files: the A5 booklet and a large-print A4 version, which drift apart the first week someone is in a hurry. The answer is to generate both from the same source, so the large-print copy is the same service, reset.
Questions
What size type should a large-print order of service be?
14pt is the usual minimum for large print, on A4. 16 to 18pt for readers with significant sight loss. Contrast matters as much as size: black on cream or white, never over a background image.
How many large-print booklets should we print?
Four to six per eighty in the congregation, kept by the door with the ordinary booklets rather than in a separate pile.