Puzzle glossary

Large print puzzle

A large print puzzle is a puzzle typeset at a substantially larger size and heavier stroke weight than usual, so that it can be read comfortably by someone with reduced vision.

The part that is most often got wrong is that everything has to grow together. Enlarging the grid while leaving the clue list, the word list, the page numbers and the buttons at their normal size produces a puzzle that looks large and still cannot be read, which describes most of the free large print puzzles online. A genuinely large print puzzle scales the labels and the instructions as well as the squares.

Publishing convention puts large print at sixteen to eighteen point for body text, with fourteen point the usual minimum before a book may call itself large print at all. Size is not the only variable: stroke weight, contrast against the page and the space between letters and lines all affect legibility, and a heavier weight at the same size often helps more than extra points do.

On paper it also means fewer puzzles per page and more room to write, since handwriting grows with the grid. On screen it means bigger tap targets, which matters for a hand that is not perfectly steady.

Try it here

Large Print Puzzles — printable sheets with answers, plus crosswords and word searches you can play in big type.

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