John Meyer wrote:
Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
Now, my radical proposal: perhaps we should design all our books for
easy reading onscreen in PDF. Landscape orientation, larger fonts,
two-column layout. Encourage people to not print from those PDFs.
Perhaps tell them a bit about how to print two-up if they really want
it printed. Or they can buy the printed book. :-)
While I would definitely encourage people to conserve by using PDFs,
there is something about the printed book that the online world can't
capture. I'm not saying "those were the days". But sometimes it's
easier to have a book by your side rather than doing the old alt-tab
trick, or resizing the screens.
Yes, and that's exactly why I -- in my other role as a publisher -- am
producing printed books, which are available for purchase from Lulu
and (I hope) from Amazon.com. If someone wants a book, buying a copy
is usually cheaper than printing it from the PDF and a lot less work.
(Of course, if one wants only a single chapter, then printing it
oneself is cheaper.)
The issue here is whether the PDFs should be designed primarily for
printing or for onscreen reading. I now think that onscreen is the way
to go for the PDFs.
--Jean
