Displaying song lyrics in worship with excellence is an often overlooked area of preparation, yet one that can really enhance our worship times. Conversely, poor slide production and operation of the lyric display can greatly hamper worship. (If your church does not use video in worship, start with a previous post, Got Video?)
In the next few weeks, we will look at various components of slide production and operation. These principles will be applicable whether you use PowerPoint or one of the worship presentation software packages such as EasyWorship, MediaShout, ProPresenter, Open LP or SongShow Plus.
This post will address the font size, font type, and line spacing.
Our goal is to make the slide clearly readable by every person from the front row to the back row. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Select a sans-serif font
. (that’s a font without “feet”). Some examples are Arial, Calibri, and Verdana. These fonts are easier to read than the serif fonts like Times Roman. Please please please NEVER use Comic Sans!
Here is an example of a serif font:
Now, look at the same slide with a sans-serif font. It is much cleaner and easier to read.
Don’t make the font size too large or too small; aim for just right. If your font size is too large, with little margins, it tends to create tension–almost a feeling of someone screaming at you.
However, small fonts will be unreadable to many, and they psychologically can lead to diminished singing. I see this most often when people try to include too many lyrics on one slide.
A good font size will have nice margins around the slide and the font will be somewhere in the 32-48 pt size, depending upon the font you are using. Some fonts are larger at 32 point than others. Here is an example of a good size:
The font size you select also should be dictated by the size of your screen and the longest distance from your screen to the places people stand for singing. If you have an under-sized screen for the room you are in, the fonts may have to be larger than optimal in order for the person farthest away to easily read the text. To determine this, try several font sizes on screen, standing at the farthest point and determine what is readable and what is too small. This will help you in determining font sizes for your presentations.
Aim for consistency in font size within the slides of a song. Avoid the temptation to size each slide separately for maximum font size within these guidelines. That can lead to some slides with much larger fonts than others, creating a sense of some being overbearing. Here is a poor example:
Note how much larger the last slide’s font is. By itself, it isn’t all bad, but in the context of the song, it is overbearing. It would be better to make the font exactly the same as the previous slides or only slightly larger:
Consider line spacing as you prepare the slide. In a later post, I will address the number of lines of text to include on a slide, but for now, let’s consider the spacing between lines. If your slide has only four lines of text, increase your line spacing to prevent the lines from looking crowded. The first slide has little space between lines. The second is much more pleasant to view:
The first example is too tight. The second one gives some breathing room. Putting in too much line spacing, however can be distracting as you move the lines too far apart:
I like to use around 1.2 – 1.3 for line spacing when possible.
Next week, I will address many other qualities of good and bad lyric presentation. Take a good look at your slides for this weekend. Do you need to make some adjustments? I welcome your comments.
Go to: Improving Your Projected Song Lyrics – Part 2
thanks for the information
Many, many studies have compared the readability of serif and sans serif fonts. Note that there is a difference between “legibility” and “readability”. Making things easy, fast, and comfortable to read is “readability”. “Legibility” is the property of a font that allows the letters themselves to be clearly discernible. Readability is what we’re after with song lyrics. These studies show no consistent, significant difference in the readability of serif and sans serif fonts. People often claim one or the other is “easier to read” for usually subjective, vague reasons, but that has no basis in fact. These opinions are based more on bias or preference. Choose a highly legible font (note that I wrote “legible” not “readable”) in serif or non serif form. The presence or absence of serifs will not significantly change the ease and speed with which people will be able to read the text.
Recently, I took over setting up, organizing ProPresenter and creating the song presentations from the person who used to do it. Looking back at the song library from the past few years, I’m noticing that many of the songs don’t have any punctuation at all, such as commas in the middle of a line to set off phrases and direct address. Looking around, most lyrics I see don’t use commas at all – not just at the end of lines. Is there a reason to not use any commas, etc., even if in the middle of a line?
one more comment about fonts. For additional variations or flavor on slides, it is fine to use a large serif font for headlines, titles, and such, Nothing fancy though, or it becomes distracting. then switch to the sans serif for the lyrics.
You can also use a serif font for the ‘footer’, copyright, notes ,etc. In a small size it can be readable if done right.
Left justified is a must IF you want to make it easy for people to follow and sing along, if you don’t, then centered text keeps them quieter.
Each line as a phrase in the song is a must IF you want to help people follow and sing along, if you don’t, then random breaks keeps then quieter.
Creating a “slide show” exactly how the band plays/sings the entire song is a must IF you want to make it easy on the A/V guys and people singing, if you don’t, then one slide per verse/bridge/chorus with the A/V guy trying to keep up, again, keeps them quieter.
“Centered text” is a leftover from lazy A/V guys who didn’t want or didn’t know how to change the “default” setting in PowerPoint.
So, spending as much time arranging the lyrics properly for ease of worshipping is almost as important as the message itself. Arranging the lyrics as an “afterthought” again, keeps them quieter.
Follow these guidelines and the people can worship and sing WITH the band, not be a spectator in a concert without real worship. 😐
That’s strange. I’ve never seen this phenomenon before in my church, in terms of centered text intimidating the audience. It doesn’t seem to be a leftover from “lazy habits” either – every slide layout program I’ve ever used defaults to left align, but we manually switch it to center align.
We use EasyWorship for our lyric presentations. We also have had some in our congregation with reading problems such as dyslexia. I have found that placing a blank space between some of the phrases helpful for those with this problem. Such as:
When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.”
This is one feature of EasyWorship I find the most helpful. It is achieved with holding Shift and Enter at the same time. I try not to have too many words on the screen for it would be more confusing but have been told that this is the best solution for the problem. This is also good for the elderly when they are having increasing sight problems.
I know that most use a plain background but I find backgrounds that have something to do with the song. Like “It is Well” I have a stormy ocean. It is not overly colorful but also aids in the mood of the song. I have also adapted some pictures into animated slides by making the water have a ripple effect, just enough to show movement and not overbearing the lyrics. The only thing I use plain backgrounds are for Scripture.
I probably spend more time than most on this work than most do but I have had absolutely no complaints and we have a very broad demographic.
I used to prepare the “fill in the blank” handouts at my former church (the pastor had previously been a theology professor, his notes sometimes were two single spaced pages long). He had been using Comic Sans, he thought it was “friendly.” Maybe it was ‘casual’ which I think he was going for, but as a printed item (on paper) it wasn’t working with the congregation, many of whom were boomers and up. I persuaded him to change it and agreed to take charge of it, by going through the formatting (he had no idea how to apply the MS Word numbering/outline function, he was doing it manually!). After I finished it I would send the final version to the person doing the display and the typeface would be changed to a san-serif style such as Arial.
We use white text all the time PLUS we outline the text so it stands out better.
I noticed your examples are using white text on a gradient black background, this is much better than black text on a white background however better still is a mid blue background (gradient or not) as the difference in contrast is not so great and therefore easier on the eyes.
Of course many set ups nowadays are putting an image as a background which automatically lends itself to white text. But when it comes to displaying bible verses many seem to just leave them at the default black text on white background. As a migraine sufferer this actually becomes painful in a very short space of time and I have to look away. Many migraine sufferers are sensitive to light so looking at a primarily white projector screen is akin to staring into the Sun.
Spread the word: white text on mid blue background for default please 🙂
This is a great article to help churches understand lyric projection better.
Thanks for the tips, this article answered a lot of my questions on song presentations. What are your thoughts on backgrounds?
It’s my personal preference to have each line begin with a capital letter, so the lyrics visually look like a poem rather than a random sequence of words.
I also like to include the secondary parts if it’s something that would be fairly familiar. I put those on parentheses. I do that because it encourages part singing, an art that is being lost in congregational singing.
To use the song in the article as an example, I would go with:
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul).
It is well,
It is well
With my soul.
My biggest pet peeve is seeing bizarre breaks in phrasing that don’t match the music. I try to avoid that as much as possible, generally putting line breaks on the screen in the same spot people would take a breath. Sometimes another break is necessary if the song moves fast and has a lot of words per phrase, but most of the time, breaking where breathing is doable.
Great words. I will be dealing with some of these items in part 3 (at least 4 parts outlined at moment). Thanks for the great suggestions!
Thanks for barring the use of comic sans. I know you said not to use serif fonts, but it should probably be said equally as strongly not to use Times New Roman! Nothing screams “I put no thought into this” more than that fingernails-on-a-chalkboard font! 🙂
I’m currently using Garamond for our lyrics slides, which is a serif font. I used Helvetica Light for a long time and was looking for a different flavor. I may need to think about that though because I do think you’re right about readability. (Ironically, it seems to work the opposite way on paper, right? Serif fonts are considered easier to read there.)
For Christmas songs, I use a different theme with Optima and that’s probably my favorite.
I look forward to reading these as I am the secretary here at the church and am responsible for composing laying out the Sunday projections.