I use Times New Roman for bearings and distances, I think it looks nice and differentiates the bearings from the other text which is just Simplex.
appropriate fonts
I just use plain ol' Tahoma 10- or 11-point font. Not as thick as arial, but thicker than romans.
A lot of guys don't like fonts with serifs because it isn't as clean of a read; at least with numbers. Probably nice fresh original prints with large enough text can take care of that, but any additional tick-marks, feet and hooks can help distort old, shrunk copied-many-times-over plats and documents.
I don't know what the standards are where you are but here the smallest text can be on a recorded plan is .08". This ensures that the text is reproducible, believe me they will kick the plan back if it doesn't meet that standard. Any font is illegible if it isn't big enough.
I was only talking about the fonts. Andy commented on the serifs being a problem, and I think that's why. I have seen a lot of documents that come from Title companies that appear to be a 10th generation copy that may have been shrunk several times over from the original. Sometimes you get an old document from the clerk-and recorder which is obviously not a first-generation copy from the original as well. (I have even seen former-36X24" plats that are in with the title commitment that have been shrunk to 8-½X11. But, of course I try to find a copy of the original full-size plat when that happens)
I have no problem with any fonts I can read, but I try to produce documents that might still be legible when they are processed through the ringer (so to speak).
(I agree with text no smaller than 0.08" on plats, btw)
I certainly agree with those sentiments. Very pleased to have min. text size, some older plats are completely illegible for the reasons you cite.
What, no Tolkien Elvish?
😉 > (I agree with text no smaller than 0.08" on plats, btw)
Here it is 0.10'.