Off the screen or in your hands?

[lustful_orcs]

Do you prefer to read off the screen, or do you like to hold hardcopy in your hands?

and in case of the latter, do you prefer a stack of sheets or a book?

[NickolasJames8]

I like to read off the screen just because I read too many stories to print the joints out

[lustful_orcs]

I greatly prefer actual hardcopy over reading off the screen.

In hardcopy, I prefer either stacks of sheets or printout books that I bound myself over most commercial books.

Part of this is my aversion of glue binding, which often makes books come apart after a while. I love paper manuscripts in general, a typical writers fetish

[jalaki]

I suppose overall I prefer actual bound books. I don't mind comemrcial ones...I'm a careful reader. None of my bindings are ever broken. I once lent a cousin a book and he broke the binding (most of what I have is paperback, hardcover is too expensive ) and after the reaming I gave him he never did it again

 

However as for stories like here...I dislike stacks of paper a great deal, and plus it'd be so MUCH paper with all the stories out there.

 

I actually am starting to like "off the screen, in my hand" *hugs his PDA* Convert to PDF format and upload and then I can read wherever I am. Works great for between classes etc, plus I can carry around dozens of books at a time and it all fits in my hand. Of course, if a book is already in eBook format that helps; if not, it can become a copyright issue, hence why I haven't really done this with anyone's yet...gotta get around to asking some of the authors I want to read if they'd mind such a thing. Heck, I'd be happy to provide them with the coverted documents if they so desired, that way others could benefit from it *shrug*

 

So yeah, that's one of my 'ideal' setups I suppose.

[Kurt]

Oh jeeze. Before I started reading online, I ALWAYS had a book near by. Since reading stuff online, I have read less than 10 books, or so. (Not including books for school.)

 

So I guess, I prefer to read off the screen.

Kurt

[TalonRider]

For me, it depends on the story. If it's a story I want to keep and re-read, then I print it and place it in a notebook. I have several stories like that.

 

Other stories I'll read on screen, but there again it depends on the background and font colors and how readable it is. White font just doesn't get it sometimes.

 

Jan

[Drewbie]

I perfer Off screen,

 

if I read books, I like them to be hard cover ones, I easily mess books up.

[Adrian Michaels]

If I'm reading something of considerable length, I'll print it off (provided I have ink...) and I'll read it like that. Usually if I commit that much time to reading something, I'm gonna want to have another copy of it so I can read it again at another time.

 

I generally like hardcover books over paperback, but sometimes paperback is easier to take with you on a trip.

[colinian]

If the story is short I definitely prefer on the screen.

 

If the story is serialized and chapters come out on a regular schedule that's fairly often, I don't mind reading it on the screen.

 

If the story is long, like a novel, I prefer having it in book form.

 

I almost never print stories to read. I have a couple of times, one was Leaves and Lunatics by EleCivil, the other was Josh, Evolving by Cole Parker. I printed them so I could read them again while commuting to community college for a summer session class and going to my summer intern job in SF.

 

When I'm editing for someone, I'll copy the story/chapters into MS Word, print them, and mark up the printed copy. I use the Word spell checker to catch misspellings that I miss. I find I can spot things on the printed copy that I miss on screen, and visa-versa.

 

Colin

[Wingless]

I would actually like having a bound book instead of reading it off the screen. I can take it around with me and mark it if I like. Plus, I wouldn't have to sit in front of a screen and burn my eyes out.

[Mark_l]

i actually prefer off screen i love books and i love the whole sense thing that comes with reading a book, books smell right and feel right i have always loved the smell of a library filled with books that had worlds to escape into and libraries have always fascinated me since a child and i have always loved to read anything and everything so i definetly prefer losing myself in a book that smells like a book yes i am odd i especially love new books that are unfolded and i love folding over that first page.

 

that said i do enjoy finding such diverse stories online but i wish i could afford to print most of them off because i still find it difficult after all this time of reading online something is just different and not as cosy when reading froma screen but i still read them just takes me longer to start stories online cause i am always reading offline.

[Empathy]

A little of both actually, I do a lot of reading up in my room, normally after i've climbed into bed. For that reason i like to take stories with me. My preferred reading method is my phone. I actually read from my phone's web browser, it has a very nice sized screen and i can hold in in one hand while i'm all curled up in bed.

[Former Member]

I guess when it comes to online stories I prefer to read them on-screen, if only because I'm such a speed reader that printing them out would be wasteful. It helps that I have my own laptop and can just curl up with that, plus most of the stuff I read online is from here and I'd feel a little weird reading that in school, which I know I would if I had a physical copy, cause I end up doing that with ALL my books.

[rainbow]

I prefer to read from the screen myself, but I must confess I dont read myself because I have some software where I copy and paste and it will read for me.

Edited February 21, 2007 by rainbow

[Cookie]

I prefer hard copies, books epically. But recently I read off screen,to much trouble to print them out!