Many typographers have already decided that sans serif type is more pleasing to readers and more functional than traditional roman type. The findings of this study, which was designed to assess the readability of, and reader preference for, these two styles, lead to the opposite conclusion. To determine preferences, 200 subjects of various ages compared newspaper stories set in roman and in sans serif type. Every age group in the sample showed a clear preference for roman type. In addition, reading speeds were found to reflect a similar trend: in half the trials, readers could read roman type significantly faster, while in none of the trials could they read sans serif type significantly faster. Although the study was not designed to measure the effect of column width, additional data suggest that width may be a more important factor in readability than is type style. (KS)