Quote:
Originally Posted by radleyp
I am really astonished at this discussion about margins. Every text I see today has margins:
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Well, I have been experimenting with various text formats before I have settled on the sans-serif font, left justification and very, very narrow margins. The text DOES look better that way to me.
The margins in books have different reason.
A classical style hardback book is printed on a very large sheets (called folio), Those sheets are then folded again and again in half and finally bound together. Only after binding the book is cut to the size.
Also paperbacks are cut to size after binding.
Another reason for margins is that you would not be able to read the text that is close to the place where the pages are bound.
And the last but not the least reason is that many people like to make notes on margins. See The Fermat's Last Theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem 
With printed papers, the reasons for margins are different. Printers and copiers (especially the really old models) can not print up to the edge of the page. Also it would be impossible for you to hold and read the paper at the same time. Also many printed papers are later bound or stapled together.
Yet another reason is that if you read a bunch of printed papers too many times the margins are the first area that gets damaged.
Quote:
Originally Posted by radleyp
Saying that the ereader case is a margin is like saying that the frame of a monitor is a margin.
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Yes. That is
EXACTLY what I am saying.
When you use monitor for work you use the entire space to display drawings, browser windows, toolbars, icons, system tray, scrollbars ....
Perhaps you remember the times when Commodore C64, Atari 800, Or Sinclair ZX Spectrum were the top of the line computers. Those computers did have a margin on a monitor, or - much more often - a TV screen. And look how silly it looks today.
http://codeazur.com.br/stuff/fc64_final/
By the way - that margin did have a technological reason.
The format for e-books Sony is using remains me of the very first models of cars that very closely resembled the horse buggy without a horse.