h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Am nearing finishing my dissertation and was wondering if anyone here has any strong opinions on what font I should use? Or if it matters at all?

Maybe I should just stick with Times New Roman but it just seems... boring...

I like using the h2g2 font.

I guess this is a university dissertation?:
if so:
Unless its submitted entirely* obeying the submittion guidelines of your University/department then they may/can fail it straight off simply for not having the right binding, not being the right font size/type etc.
You should have some guidelines about submittion of dissertation at your deparetment/school/Uni, which will give the font size for the main body of the text, the type of font to use, the line spacing to use etc; there should also be information on what fonts to use for additional sections etc; often you must have it in double line spacing for the body of the disseration, but additional matterial, and refernces/biblography can be in one and a half line spacing.
Most of the uni's I've been too it was double line spacing, Aerial 12 point pretty much everywhere (can't remember the details on doing headings footnotes etc and they seemed to vary more between departments)
Make sure you leave enough time to get the dissertation bound; they always get busy as it nears the deadline;

Personally I find serif fonts (like Times New Roman) easier to read, especially in italic text.

If your University doesn't specify a font, I'd try something serif, and something respectable. Times New Roman fits that bill, but so does Bookman Old Style, which I quite like.

If you do want to go with a sans-serif font, you could always try Helvetica. It's pretty much the standard sans-serif, much as TNR has become the standard serif.

TRiG.

It is a university dissertation... They don't seem to mind which font I put it in, or not that I can see.

Thanks a lot, I quite like Bookman Old Style and Helvetica. I might go with Verdana though which I also like. But then maybe thinking about it too much is actually just another way of me actually putting of finishing the thing - it doesn't seem to matter what font blank space is in....

Seems unusual that they've not specified the font... we had pages and pages of exact instructions on every detail of presenting the disseration, from the font, sizing pics/diagrams/tables, to the exact wording for the declaration of copyright and then to how many pages each volume could be, where additional matterial had to be placed etc Mind, the Masters dissertation was even worse, though the end result looks far smarter with its nice posh swanky covers and binding that cost a damn fortune how long you got left to hand it in? I know my Brother is busy working on his at the moment too

Try Wingdings or Webdings. If they can't figure it out, they are not worthy of your input.

Y.

I have exactly a week - most of it is done at least... I have to get it bound as well. Its my own fault for spending easter doing everything except write the thing (such as watch the whole of Black Books... things like that)

Ahh the final week If you can have a friend have a read though it once you think its entirely finished; when I did mine I remember it just got to the stage where I was reading and reading it and totally unable to spot any mistakes as I was just too famuliar with the writing but getting a friend to skim read/proof read it and they found tons of silly mistakes I'd missed out on now; get off HooToo and get to working on your dissertation

I mark students work at a Uni, unless you want to piss off the marker (which I suspect you don't) use one of Arial, Helvetica (nearly exactly the same as Arial) or Times/Times New Roman. It's very annoying when someone comes up with a non-standard font which they think is pretty but isn't. 12 point it pretty standard, don't go smaller as it is irritating to have to squint a the small typeface. Line spacing of 1 1/2 is best too.

Personally I'm surprised they haven't got some requirements.

In the last round of calls for funding from one of the governments research councils, they outright rejected nearly every proposal and demanded it be returned in 11 point Arial - nothing else would do . That's frankly over the top, but that is the current policy so what can you do?

I've got to hand mine in Thursday after next. I think mine is specified 12 point TNR.