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Atlassian Typography Cheatsheet

Practical rules and ratios for type scale, line height, and length

From the Xiry library · Updated 11 October 2026

A concise typography reference created by Atlassian covering essential formatting principles. It provides specific formulas and baseline numbers for establishing typographic scale, heading versus body line heights, and comfortable line lengths.

The framework

Typography cheatsheet (by Atlassian)

TYPESCALE

Sample sizes: 48px, 40px, 32px, 28px, 24px, 20px, 16px, 14px, 12px. Work down from a base size; scale ratio example: 16 x 1.2 = 19.2 → round to 20.

LINE HEIGHT

Heading font size x = 24 → ~1.2x = 28.8 → line height 28.

Body font size x = 16 → ~1.5x = 24 → line height 24.

Rule of thumb: headings ~1.2x font size, body ~1.5x.

LINE LENGTH

Too short: lines of ~3–6 words force constant line breaks and chop the reading rhythm.

Optimal length: roughly 50–75 characters per line, comfortable reading rhythm.

Too long: lines running far past that strain the eye tracking back to the next line.

Context from the tweet: three core principles every designer should get right — 1) Type Scale, 2) Line Height, 3) Line Length. "Good typography is invisible, but bad typography is painfully noticeable."

What it's for

  • Calculate consistent line heights for headings and body text
  • Establish a modular type scale for a design system
  • Set readable paragraph line lengths in responsive layouts

Key points

  • Standard modular type scale values ranging from 12px to 48px
  • Mathematical scale ratio rounding guidelines
  • Heading line height formula of approximately 1.2x font size
  • Body line height formula of approximately 1.5x font size
  • Optimal reading line length recommendation of 50 to 75 characters per line

Pricing

Free

Details

Type
Framework
Category
Design
Topic
Typography Guidelines
Open source
No
Platforms
other
For
UI/UX designers, design system engineers, and frontend developers
Tags
typography, design system, ui design, cheatsheet, atlassian

Why it was saved

  • @101babich, 6 July 2025: Concrete, reusable rules for type scale, line height, and line length with exact calculations.

Related

Updated