Spacing Requirements

If you pick 20 printed forms at random, you will find a great variety of spacing on them. Most forms seem to be spaced haphazardly. The method of preparing a form tells whether to allow for handwritten, printed entries, or both. In either case, there must be sufficient space to allow for data capture. A standard is needed.

The 3 refers to the number of lines per vertical inch, while the 5 refers to the number of characters that fit in one horizontal inch. This approach is related to spacing for clerks (8 characters per inch or cpi), workers (5 cpi), and printers (10/J2 cpi).

There are times when a cel1ain amount of space must have a minimum number of lines. One way of determining lines is with the diagonal spacing method. As illustrated in In this case, inch multiples are used. A one-inch multiple can be obtained simply by making a sharper diagonal slant of the ruler.

In columnar spacing, the column width is determined by the amount of data in tl1e column and how data are recorded. The 3/5 rule should be adequate to determine the columnar spacing required on most forms. Column headings should be written horizontally whenever possible.