First Impressions of the M218A Ebook Reader

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tompe

It is well know that what people think looks better and what is more readable is not the same thing. There are also readability reasons for margins. Most important that no visual margins will make it harder to find the next line.

How do you read a newspaper?

Dale

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

How do you read a newspaper?

Dale

i've never seen a newspaper which had no margins.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Did the chinese characters appear in the books when you view them with the PC version of Wolf Viewer? I did some limited checking on the pc version and I did not see them on the one book I checked.

Dale

The exact same errors showed up in the source TXT file (as well as the WOLF ebook I made from the TXT file) when I viewed the file on my M218A. And no, the errors did not appear in the PC Wolf Viewer.


P.S. Aside from a few minor flaws, the Wolf Viewer/Maker distributed by the Walkbook people is a really nice piece of software. A link to it should be added to the sticky.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i've never seen a newspaper which had no margins.

Go ahead.
Open a newspaper.
Here is one
[ http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/...can/index.html ]
Now tell me, how wide the space between columns is.
Thank you DaleDe

When I said that the my version of formatting looked beter to me, I really meant that this setup is easier for me to read.

Reading is a very complex process. We read several words at the time. A good reader (understand person that is reading) can get in several words at a single glance.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tompe

It is well know that what people think looks better and what is more readable is not the same thing. There are also readability reasons for margins. Most important that no visual margins will make it harder to find the next line.

Actually, on my 505, I prefer no margins at all. It actually is easier for me to read that way.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by kacir

Go ahead.
Open a newspaper.
Here is one
[ http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/...can/index.html ]
Now tell me, how wide the space between columns is.
Thank you DaleDe

When I said that the my version of formatting looked beter to me, I really meant that this setup is easier for me to read.

Reading is a very complex process. We read several words at the time. A good reader (understand person that is reading) can get in several words at a single glance.

your example seems to confirm what i said, so i don't understand your point... in a paper newspaper, there are margins around the edges of the pages, and there are gutters between each column of text which i suppose you could argue are like small margins (it's not quite the same but it serves more or less the same purpose). when i click on the photo of the printed newspaper (with columns of text all of which are separated by gutters...), the page switches to an in-line presentation of the articles, and again there are small margins between the blocks of text and the edges of the window, or between any 2 columns. a margin does not have to be very big to count ; for example, when i format a text to make an ebook, i create a margin of 2% ; this is not very wide but it serves to allow the text some breathing room from the edge of the screen which in turn makes it easier for the eye to keep its place while going back and forth across the lines.

once again, white space is an important part of page layout and is not there just to look pretty. people figured out that space was necessary to improve readibility and comprehensibility on their own rather quickly, thus the convention of inserting a space between each word for example, and now that we have the technology to do so, this has been confirmed by scientific experiments which moniter the mouvements of the eye while reading, corresponding brain activity, and the effects of such modifications as increasing / decreasing the vertical space between lines (line height), increasing / reducing margins, lengthening / shortening the width of the column of text / page (too long lines of text, and the eye gets lost more easily on the way back from the end of the line, making the text much harder to read), masking the top half or bottom half of a string of characters (lower case characters, being more formally differentiated, are easier to recognize, to the point where you can read a word or sentence in lower case rather easily even if only the top half of it is visible ; this is much harder and sometimes impossible with upper case), whether fully-justified text is easier or harder to read than left-aligned with a ragged right edge, etc. the mechanics of reading is something that people have studied quite intensively in fact. i certainly don't claim to be an expert, but it's my job to know a minimum about it because i am a graphist and i get paid to know how to lay out text.

you are absolutely correct that reading is a very complex process, and that we do not read each individual letter one at a time (which is why, as the famous experiment has proven, you can jumble all the letters in each word of a paragraph, but as long as the first and last letters of each word are in place, you will be able to understand the text). however it is also a process which we now understand on a much deeper level than before and we can now explain exactly *why* some conventions of traditional printing serve a real purpose other than aesthetic.

you may *prefer* to read without margins, however this is a question of your personal taste, and *objectively*, overall, this actually makes reading more difficult. in addition, you clearly read with great ease and can overcome some additional difficulties ; do not forget that this is not the case of every person, even without taking into account those with difficulties such as dyslexia.

[DaleDe]

Well, at least you will agree that the paper margin in a printed book is a lot bigger than is really needed. I like 2 pixels margin on my eBookwise just because the font tends to bleed a little into the next pixel but, of course there really is still a rather large margin in the form of a frame around the image. This does just fine at allowing finding the next line in text easily. The margin doesn't have to be done with the precious few pixels in the screen display. Screen real estate management is an art in itself much different from a page of a book just like column real estate in a newspaper is managed much differently than a book. There needs to be precious little margin to sastify most people based on the number of people satisfied with a newspaper. YMMV,

Dale

[tompe]

But with the Cybook you cannot use the frame a margin since it is black. If the frame give you a visual marging then you have a margin.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, at least you will agree that the paper margin in a printed book is a lot bigger than is really needed. I like 2 pixels margin on my eBookwise just because the font tends to bleed a little into the next pixel but, of course there really is still a rather large margin in the form of a frame around the image. This does just fine at allowing finding the next line in text easily. The margin doesn't have to be done with the precious few pixels in the screen display. Screen real estate management is an art in itself much different from a page of a book just like column real estate in a newspaper is managed much differently than a book. There needs to be precious little margin to sastify most people based on the number of people satisfied with a newspaper. YMMV,

Dale

i will agree that formatting for the screen is not the same as formatting for print, especially if the text is re-flowable. i also agree that in ebooks we don't need a margin as large as commonly found in paper books (although i will say, that the inside margin of most paper books could stand to be wider, for improved reading at the edges of lines next to the binding ; but that is a completely different and unrelated question ). however i don't think you can consider the frame of the device to be a margin, because there is a physical and --more important-- *visual* boundary between the edge of the screen and the frame of the device.

look at this forum : each post is enclosed in a frame. between the frame and the beginning of the text, there is a little space. there is even more space if you look at the page in full-screen, because for improved reading comfort, the maximum length of the lines is limited, and instead there is empty space on either side. this is not just because your moniter is much bigger ; it is for improved readability. from time to time, i have seen websites made by an amateur, where the text begins quite literally at the very edge of the window ; even if you put the window full-screen there is not one pixel space to separate it. and even worse, if you do put it full-screen, the text fills up the complete width of the window. this presentation is so difficult and unpleasant to read, that when i find a site like that, if the content is interesting enough, i will copy it out and paste it into word and read it there, rather than in my browser. if it's not interesting enough, i will leave the site without reading it.

obviously, i'm not saying you have to use 20% margins on all sides ; as i said, i use 2% which is really quite small, probably about as wide as an "a". however, it is enough to allow the characters to display properly without any trouble of being slightly cut off or the edges being masked, and it is enough to allow the eye to easily find its place on the page and a bit of space to "turn" in. this may sound silly, but it is quite important.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

and there are gutters between each column of text

this is what I had in mind.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

I create a margin of 2% ; ... some breathing room from the edge of the screen.

2% is 1.8mm on the Reader and that would be a *very* reasonable value for margin. In fact, when you create an rtf file with 0.01 size margin the reader starts text some 2 mm from the screen edge.

I have been reading from [very] small screens for years and I have acquired a taste for using as much screen real estate as possible.

Sony, on the other hand sells books that have something like +10mm margin and that is a waste of space. The first post in this thread shows Kindle with a text formated with an 8 mm left margin. I have just measured it. This is what I am grumbling about.
To make things worse the books from Sony Connect store have fully justified paragraphs. Full justification works great on an average printed page where there are quite a few words (or, more importantly, quite a few spaces) on the line. When you do a full justification combined with 6" screen, relatively large font and quite wide margins the width of space between words varies too much for me to be comfortable with.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

... but it's my job to know a minimum about it because i am a graphist and i get paid to know how to lay out text.

I have done quite a lot of work in DTP, working in Aldus PageMaker, Quark and InDesign so I know what you are talking about. I have even been creating brochures and advertisement company materials for offset printing.


And do not let me started on the serif versus sans-serif and their readability on a very low resolution medium. And 160dpi of an e-ink screen is low. Very low. Isn't it? Please notice that most of the content you read on web pages - including this site - is in sans-serif font.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by kacir

And do not let me started on the serif versus sans-serif and their readability on a very low resolution medium. And 160dpi of an e-ink screen is low. Very low. Isn't it? Please notice that most of the content you read on web pages - including this site - is in sans-serif font.

166dpi is not low when referring to LCD. My laptop screen tops out at just over 100dpi (guesstimate).

P.S. In my opinion, any resolution higher than the equivalent of 640 by 480 on a 12" screen cannot possibly be low resolution. All 6" Eink screens exceed this easily.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by kacir

this is what I had in mind.

2% is 1.8mm on the Reader and that would be a *very* reasonable value for margin. In fact, when you create an rtf file with 0.01 size margin the reader starts text some 2 mm from the screen edge.

I have been reading from [very] small screens for years and I have acquired a taste for using as much screen real estate as possible.

Sony, on the other hand sells books that have something like +10mm margin and that is a waste of space. The first post in this thread shows Kindle with a text formated with an 8 mm left margin. I have just measured it. This is what I am grumbling about.
To make things worse the books from Sony Connect store have fully justified paragraphs. Full justification works great on an average printed page where there are quite a few words (or, more importantly, quite a few spaces) on the line. When you do a full justification combined with 6" screen, relatively large font and quite wide margins the width of space between words varies too much for me to be comfortable with.

I have done quite a lot of work in DTP, working in Aldus PageMaker, Quark and InDesign so I know what you are talking about. I have even been creating brochures and advertisement company materials for offset printing.

And do not let me started on the serif versus sans-serif and their readability on a very low resolution medium. And 160dpi of an e-ink screen is low. Very low. Isn't it? Please notice that most of the content you read on web pages - including this site - is in sans-serif font.

actually, Nate is right, 160dpi resolution is quite good. print resolution is 300dpi (this is "high res"), and web (computer screen) is 72dpi. 160 for text is completely respectable and noticeably better than a computer moniter.

i don't think it's quite reasonable to use the same conventions when formatting for an 6" e-ink screen as for a telephone or pda screen (i assume this is what you meant, when you said you read on very very small screens). after all, even you say the corresponding tastes are "acquired" they *definitely* are not high res, and as you say are significantly smaller. i can understand not wanting a margin there because you've barely got room for 2 words per line as it is ! but this is really a pretty lousy way to read, when you get right down to it, ok in a pinch but hopefully not your only option. there are many many details of text and page layout and the reading experience which must be compromised / abandoned.

current e-ink screens might not be *completely* comparable to a printed text yet, but they are definitely several orders of magnitude closer than a telephone screen and i think (somewhat modified) print conventions apply better than telephone screen conventions. so for instance, serif typefaces display *horribly* on a telephone screen and it makes no sense to use there. however, overall they are more comfortable to read for long passages than sans-serif, which are usually reserved for titles and legends and such, rather than body text. i feel confident that e-ink screens can *already* display serif typefaces well, so why not use them ?

you're right that it's best to avoid full justification on reflowable text ; this is only partly because of the line length (on my eb1150, at a small type-size, i beleive i can fit about as many characters as a typical small paperback) ; rather, it's because you can't adjust the tracking (the space between letters) and so you invariably get a page full of "holes", as you described. not good !

[tompe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

you're right that it's best to avoid full justification on reflowable text ; this is only partly because of the line length (on my eb1150, at a small type-size, i beleive i can fit about as many characters as a typical small paperback) ; rather, it's because you can't adjust the tracking (the space between letters) and so you invariably get a page full of "holes", as you described. not good !

Actually, on the Cybook you do not get rivers at least since the justification will fail sometimes and the line spacing is large enough that you do not see holes so often.

i think the research is nog conclusive on the question if serif or san-serif is more readable. 160dpi is so low that you have to choose a suitable font (300dpi is also low).

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by tompe

Actually, on the Cybook you do not get rivers at least since the justification will fail sometimes and the line spacing is large enough that you do not see holes so often.

well, i imagine that depends on the type-size you choose though, right ? and that is sort of my point ; the display is mutable, so with tricky layouts like full-justification you cannot be sure of a good result purely on luck, whereas ragged right edge is easy to read and much more accomodating of modifications to type size / line length / etc.

i think the research is nog conclusive on the question if serif or san-serif is more readable. 160dpi is so low that you have to choose a suitable font (300dpi is also low).

300dpi is low ??? what do you consider high ???? i ask that in all sincerity ; when i treat an image for a print job, i work in 300dpi (this is called "high resolution" by people who work in graphism or printing) ; there is no point in going higher, because the printer cannot do it and it will make no difference in the end result. at 300dpi, the individual dots of the printed image are completely invisible to the naked eye and you need a pretty good magnifying glass to see them.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

well, i imagine that depends on the type-size you choose though, right ? and that is sort of my point ; the display is mutable, so with tricky layouts like full-justification you cannot be sure of a good result purely on luck, whereas ragged right edge is easy to read and much more accomodating of modifications to type size / line length / etc.

Of course it depends a bit on the typ size. But what they have done is sacrificed the right justification for specific lines if you cannot justify without getting holes.

300dpi is low ??? what do you consider high ???? i ask that in all sincerity ; when i treat an image for a print job, i work in 300dpi (this is called "high resolution" by people who work in graphism or printing) ; there is no point in going higher, because the printer cannot do it and it will make no difference in the end result. at 300dpi, the individual dots of the printed image are completely invisible to the naked eye and you need a pretty good magnifying glass to see them.

Well, for the standard TeX font for example you need 600dpi at least since it has thin hairlines (or what you call them). It does not look prefect using 300 dpi. Other fonts that are designed for low resolution like Times can of course be used with 300dpi. On the Cybook I use Lucida Sans which is designed for low (screen) resolution.