M. Cejudo
ONCE,
Cre. Antonio Vicente Mosquete,
Paseo de la Habana, nº 208,
E 28036 Madrid,
Spain.

This paper takes two assumptions for granted: first, reading newspapers is of the utmost interest for many of the low vision persons; second, the professionals dealing with this patients usually refer to newsprint as an standard magnitude. A recent survey, made in all the Spanish newspapers with more than two thousand readers a day, indicates that there are significant variations among both, sections of a journal (a factor of 2.00) and a single section of the different newspapers (a factor of 2.75). The most common font amongst them is "Times New Roman".

Data collected suggest that a right prescription of low vision aids for reading newsprint may require at least five different levels of magnification (Zeiss Reading Test) to accommodate the magnification range require by the 16 different print sizes measured: minimum 0.8 mm and maximum 2.3 mm in the study.

This findings definitely challenge the criterion of a standard print size and the recommendation of an aid which enable the patient to read 1 M (in M units system, 1 M = 1.45 mm).

In this work we have measured what we considered the ten main sections of each one of the 83 periodicals gathered in the study, offering a view nation-wide about the subject.