Reading
Large Documents On Line
Thoreau Reader: Home
The technology of a paper book is remarkably user friendly. Your fingers
have learned to turn pages without your having to give the process any
thought, and this becomes so automatic that after a while that the book
virtually disappears, and all that remains is you, the author and the story.
The common wisdom has been that it would always be easier to read from
a printed page than a web page.
But as web technology gets better, the computer gets closer to the book,
and under the right conditions, it has now become practical to read large
amounts of text on line. The primary obsticle may be that some monitor
widths create text lines that are longer that the optimal length. To improve
the experience, you can do four things:
Adjust the font size displayed by your browser to whatever works best for
you, which may vary from page to page. Sometimes larger font sizes have
thicker letters; it's better to stick with smaller fonts if you find them
easier to read.
In Windows, make sure your computer is displaying smooth fonts. This varies
by operating system version, and a web search for “smooth fonts” should
provide the details for your computer. This is also called “anti-aliasing.”
Click the browser window size button, generally near the upper right corner
of the screen, to reduce the window to less than the entire screen. Stretch
your window to the full screen height, then reduce the width to create
text lines short enough to read comfortably, usually with no more than
80 to 100 characters per line.
Use a mouse with a scroll wheel. This is the inovation that has finally
made web page scrolling as easy as turning the pages of a paper book.