Discussion: Control Description Width

Quickie question...

What's the standard width of control description sheets? Particularly, the loose ones that people wear on wrists.

And I answered it myself.

Per an IOF spec I found, the squares need to be between 5mm and 7mm square. The standard sheet is 8 squares across, so that puts it between 40mm and 56mm.

In Condes, default is 7, I use 6. 5 is to small

And 6 is too small for some of us.

7 generally takes up too much space on the map. I use 6 (or sometimes 5) on the map, and try to use 7 on the control sheet (sl long as it doesn't get ridiculously large)

Can the thickness of the print be altered? eg can it be "bold' as that helps too.

I use Purple Pen which has some good features for varying control description size. When you have created a course and are ready to add control descriptions you use the mouse to size the descriptions box, so provided there is room on the map you can make them any size you want.

Also, once you have created your course OCAD files from PP, you can open them in OCAD and adjust the font and sizes of text in the descriptions. This is only useful for text descriptions - in symbol descriptions the control and code numbers are already bold and maximum size to fit in their box by default. You could bold and change the font size for the feature size box, but there's not a lot of scope for increasing the size.

When you are printing separate descriptions in PP, you can make the line size up to 10mm, but the trick is to choose a size that will fit into the average control description holder.

I've found that bold print is harder to read, at least at small sizes. I have trouble with the control numbers, particularly telling 6 from 8.

origamiguy - it's a fine line - ooops sorry abut that pun. Maybe it's the font but we've had a string of fine descriptions recently for statewide events that weren't legible - but perhaps they may have been photocopied rather than printed? Not sure now. BUT the problem extends to 3,6,8,9 also.

CONDES default is Narrow Bold, maybe that's the compromise ;)