THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING FONT

[BLACK BART]

If the text on these 1099 forms gets any smaller I may accidentally order one as a prescription drug.  And I thought last year's were bad ...

[Lee B]

That's with my last eyeglass prescription, I see at 115%

[Max W]

I got a good laugh out of it.

I keep a 4 inch, lighted magnifier on my desk for such things.  

[Lion EA]

I had cataract surgery a year ago December to solve the problem of unreadable numbers. Now I'm good down to 8 pt fonts. Although, some of the scanned stuff clients send me is pretty blurry.

[Lee B]

I have a few clients who have tried emailing a number of pages by taking pictures with their cell phone cameras,

with no straight lines, lots of wavy curves . Many times it's almost impossible to read, makes me nauseous and gives me a headache.

I had to draw a line with these clients and insist they mail me the original documents or use a standard scanner!

There are just some things you  shouldn't have to put up with!

[Lion EA]

Hubby told me about a great FREE scanner on his phone; I figure if it can make music notes/symbols clear, it can make numbers clear. I just installed it and took a scan of a spreadsheet. Wow. It lightens the background (no more gray paper in scans) and smooths out the lines and straightens the image. Like having the original. It's called Scannable and the logo is a butterfly on an aqua background. I have a couple clients that insist on texting the pictures they take on their phones. I'm trying to get them to upload to FileShare, but if they'll use Scannable too, I'll be so happy. Yes, FREE.

Delete, Rotate, Crop, Restore. Send, Share (AirDrop, Message, Mail, Twitter, all the usuals). Save to Camera Roll or Evernote. So, I'm telling my clients to Save to Camera Roll and then upload to FileShare. 

[Sara EA]

No excuse for those small fonts.  Many places issue beautiful W2s or 1099s, with nice big clear numbers.  Others use the exact same 8 1/2 X 11 size paper and teeny fonts that are a strain to read.  Why?  As for phone photos, we actually put on our client questionnaire this year "NO PHONE PICTURES."  We have all wasted too much time trying to decipher them.  Yes, it makes a difference if that is a 3 or a 6 or an 8.

[Lion EA]

3 or 6 or 8 was exactly my problem that made me accept cataract surgery! I spent way too much time re-reading all the numbers, using the lighted magnifier on my phone, calling hubby (he's younger) in to proofread, etc. No excuse for tax documents to be in tiny font.

[Abby Normal]

This is one more reason why working from scans is superior. I often zoom to 200% or even 400% to see these tiny numbers. Is that a 6 or an 8? Oh, it's a 9! (I feel like Jimi Hendrix, except I do care if it's a 6 or a 9.

And making tiny number bold faced is just cruel and inhumane, not to mention a waste of toner.

[Lion EA]

I have one client who emails in a funky font. I think I've trained her NOT to use that when emailing me.

[Catherine]

20 hours ago, cbslee said:

I had to draw a line with these clients and insist they mail me the original documents or use a standard scanner!

There's an app called CamScanner that turns a phone picture into a clear pdf.  I recommend it highly, to all those clients who simply *must* use their &^%$# phone on documents.  Heck, I've used it myself on occasion, and have been very pleased with the quality.

[Catherine]

It's all basically the fault of the laser printer (and maybe inkjets).  Those made it possible to print in 6 point or 4 point fonts without a total blur.  So of course they are used for exactly that.

One really excellent side-effect of being as nearsighted as I am is that, if I take my glasses *off*, it's like having built-in magnifying glasses.  Hold the paper four inches from my face and I can decipher anything.  Or put my nose near the monitor surface.  As long as it's reasonably non-blurry, I can read it.  And yes, I look like a total ninny sticking my face up to the monitor.

[Abby Normal]

3 hours ago, Lion EA said:

I have one client who emails in a funky font. I think I've trained her NOT to use that when emailing me.

If you know what the font is, delete if from your computer and you should see a default font instead. Your computer can't display a font you don't have (as far as I know).

[Abby Normal]

2 hours ago, Catherine said:

And yes, I look like a total ninny sticking my face up to the monitor

Oh I need a picture of that!

[Abby Normal]

2 hours ago, Catherine said:

There's an app called CamScanner that turns a phone picture into a clear pdf.  I recommend it highly, to all those clients who simply *must* use their &^%$# phone on documents.  Heck, I've used it myself on occasion, and have been very pleased with the quality.

There are many good scanning apps. The I tried was Genius Scan. Worked very well.

[schirallicpa]

My beef is with the driver's licenses.  In NY you have to put the document ID from the back of the license in to ATX.    They can't print them any smaller!  I probably have half of them input wrong.  "is that a 6 or an 8?  is that a capital I or a 1?  is that an O or a D?"  

[Catherine]

On 3/3/2021 at 3:44 PM, Abby Normal said:

Oh I need a picture of that!

I'll see what I can do, probably tomorrow.  Need the daylight coming in the window to get a good picture.

[joanmcq]

Catherine, I do the same thing!  Take off my glasses and put the paper up to my face.

This year I got actual computer glasses and they help some with the tiny fonts.