A 1 line display will only show 1 line of text.
A 2 line display will show 1 line or 2 lines of text.
A 3 line display will show 1 line, 2 lines or 3 lines of text.
And so on.....
Typical number of characters per line
Characters are formed using a variable pitch font, so the exact number of characters that are visible per line depends upon the exact text shown.
The typical number of characters per line is based upon the standard 7 pixel by 5 pixel font. Using a smaller font increases the number of characters per line and using a larger font decreases the number of characters per line.
Tips for choosing the best message display for your needs
The larger the characters are the further away you can read them, so think about the distance of your target audience from the display.
The viewing distances below are for standard brightness LED’s viewed indoors.
| Character Height | Readable Viewing Distance |
| inches | mm | feet | metres |
| 2 | 51 | 66 | 20 |
| 4 | 102 | 131 | 40 |
| 6 | 152 | 197 | 60 |
| 8 | 203 | 262 | 80 |
| 10 | 254 | 328 | 100 |
Choose the brightness of the display based upon the ambient background lighting, for example.....
In an office, standard brightness displays would be suitable but in a shop window these would look very washed out, so for this application you would need an ultra-bright display.