Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Yes, the limited/discrete pixel size does cause a problem by not allow the kerning that is done with print books and in PDFs. The eye strain comes from the irregular spacing and re-positioning of the eyes.
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Except that kerning
also causes an irregular rate of scan across the page... though far more subtly.
While it is not
implemented in the Reader, it can certainly do kerning. Pagemaker -- which is so old now, it probably could run wholesale on the Reader! -- had several kerning adjustments. Any electronic font renderer can do it... if the programmers program it.
It's likely not implemented because the primary motivation isn't there. (Give you one guess!) Paper books use more regular spacing to optimize the use of pages -- the less paper the less the book costs to make. "So fit as many words on a page as you can" isn't a huge priority for Readers. And that's probably why there isn't hyphenated word breaks at the margin.
I am still not entirely convinced that this causes eye strain. But I ain't going to bet the farm on it by any means. And if it causes you eye strain, it very likely causes it for others.
-Pie