Being read onscreen

[Bondwriter]

I noticed writers post their stories in lots of different formats. Even in the eFiction section, you may make different choices about spacing your paragraphs and line breaks. Some people lost me as a reader because they used a dark blue font color on a black background. Are you thinking of readers using a computer monitor when you post your stories?

 

My POV: it is quite important to think about it; if I could I would post with something akin to Adobe Reader, so I decide of the font and its features and do not rely on the readers' browsers; I'd also decide of the lay-out on the monitor. With HTML if your window is opened big, you might end up with 20 to 30 words per line which makes a story difficult to read.

[JamesSavik]

You've got plenty of choices.

 

You can cut&paste a story and dump it into word so that you can format it in such a way to either print it out to read or use a font and font size that makes it easy to read.

 

If you have Dragon Naturally Speaking and can stand listening to a synthetic voice, it will read text aloud to you.

 

Some authors are hinky about copying their work. Most don't really care as long as you make ONE copy for personal use and do NOT redistribute it.

 

If you DO copy a story for personal use, be sure to put the authors NAME and DATE of the copy and note WHERE it came from. While reading a story this doesn't mean much. 3 years later when you stumbled upon it again, it means ALOT.

[Graeme]

I noticed writers post their stories in lots of different formats. Even in the eFiction section, you may make different choices about spacing your paragraphs and line breaks. Some people lost me as a reader because they used a dark blue font color on a black background. Are you thinking of readers using a computer monitor when you post your stories?

 

My POV: it is quite important to think about it; if I could I would post with something akin to Adobe Reader, so I decide of the font and its features and do not rely on the readers' browsers; I'd also decide of the lay-out on the monitor. With HTML if your window is opened big, you might end up with 20 to 30 words per line which makes a story difficult to read.

I read a lot of print novels, which use the convention of no space between paragraphs, but indent the first line instead. I don't have any problems with that. However, I have a great deal of trouble reading an online story that's formated in that way. It could be the subtle differences in character size, font, or just the glare from the screen, but I need to have the paragraphs separated by a blank line to make it readable.

 

Text/background contrast is very important. There have been stories where readers have stopped because of that simple issue. HTML allows a lot of flexibility in that respect, but making the story 'pretty' shouldn't detract the reader from the story content.

 

Personally, I keep things very simple. A common font (with the occasional use of an alternative for special situations), strongly contrasting text/background (I let the hosting sites select them, though they have all asked my opinion before they get posted), and a line break between paragraphs.

 

I remember doing a course on presentations for work. The lecturer said that Arial is used for more powerpoint presentations for a very good reason -- it's a clear and easy to read font when projected onto a screen. I prefer Times New Roman for my own writing, but I don't mind other fonts and I let the hosting sites control that if they have a preference.

 

Graeme

[JamesSavik]

I agree Graeme- arial is my favorite fonts. It's got a very clean look and it scales very well.

 

Other popular fonts that are supposed to be easily read are courier and times new roman but it's all a matter of taste.

[Dark Star]

I noticed writers post their stories in lots of different formats. Even in the eFiction section, you may make different choices about spacing your paragraphs and line breaks. Some people lost me as a reader because they used a dark blue font color on a black background. Are you thinking of readers using a computer monitor when you post your stories?

 

My POV: it is quite important to think about it; if I could I would post with something akin to Adobe Reader, so I decide of the font and its features and do not rely on the readers' browsers; I'd also decide of the lay-out on the monitor. With HTML if your window is opened big, you might end up with 20 to 30 words per line which makes a story difficult to read.

 

 

I'll jump in here as well. I always used Times New Roman 12 for my fonts but the site that hosts my stories switches it to Arial as JS and Graeme stated.

 

I also agree mainly through having it come back to bite me in the rear that nice high contrast text/background scenarios work the best. I posted a number of my chapters in a nice royal blue text on black background that I thought looked marvelous only to have a bunch of emails blasting me for it. It worked for me quite well but others whined about it.

 

It doesn't matter that they could copy/paste it and change it to something else quite easily, they won't, usually just bitch about it. I finally settled on black text on a light yellow background for things for quite a while and most people seemed to like that.

 

Anyway save yourself a headache and stick with what others have said nice contrast and Arial or Times New Roman. Use the breaks too that makes a world of difference.

 

Oh and get a good editor

 

I can't believe how bad some of my earlier chapters look without that person's assistance as was struck home when two unedited early chapters got put up recently by mistake instead of the edited ones.

 

Take Care DS

[Bondwriter]

I think the eFiction section is in Arial. There are other good looking fonts for onscreen reading but in HTML they need to be on your reader's computer. Times New Roman is OK with for printing, but to read onscreen. I like sanserif fonts better on screen. And large. (This message is in Century Gothic which I think is cool and quite easy to read)

 

It took me a while to realize that as Graeme said what doesn't bother you on paper is usually different once onscreen. If I ever have to get a story printed on paper to be distributed as such, I will have to group 3 paragraphs of the onscreen version because it really doesn't work the same way. Even the space between two lines of dialogue is nice. (When I print out a story, I suppress the extra spaces with a search and replace command. It saves paper, and it's perfectly OK to read)

[Graeme]

It took me a while to realize that as Graeme said what doesn't bother you on paper is usually different once onscreen. If I ever have to get a story printed on paper to be distributed as such, I will have to group 3 paragraphs of the onscreen version because it really doesn't work the same way. Even the space between two lines of dialogue is nice. (When I print out a story, I suppress the extra spaces with a search and replace command. It saves paper, and it's perfectly OK to read)

There's a simpler way to do this for your own work. When I write, I alter the default paragraph style to put a blank line before each paragraph, rather than typing them in manually. If I want to change it to no space, but indenting instead, I just change the default paragraph style and the entire document is automatically changed -- it takes a couple of seconds and it is changed back with about the same amount of effort. I personally use OpenOffice as my word-processor, but this also works in MS Word (I've done it there, too).

[Red_A]

This is a very heated subject. Everybody has different views. so I apologise if I upset people, it is not intended.

 

In general there are rules, which keep most people happy except colour blind and Dysylexic.

 

Display Text and Printed text are on opposite sides. A display text which is highly readable will not be easily read when printed.

 

The Printed Text should be black on white paper or black on yellow. The best font is Times roman or simalar at 12points (or 10points alternative), spacing should be 1.5 line. Paragraphs should be defined by indentation of first line.

Popular Problems:- white on black paper does not work due to printing problems, Arial Narrow is the best font where the text is overcrowded. Avoid 8 points or smaller size as in some occasions, there may be legal problems due to the small print.

 

The Display text should be white print on black, although black print on white is almost as good. The best font is Verdana or simalar (arial). font size is not as important but should be 11points or bigger. Dark colour print on light shades of colour can be very sucessful, as long as the contrast is large. See this page. Line spacing should be 1.5 line, and paragraphs must be defined by extra blank line.

Popular Problems:- Avoid neon colours on black, unless you enjoy flames. Avoid Print on top of a picture, if possible incorporate text into picture, so that you know where the text will be. Try to use less than 3 fonts. Go easy on fancy fonts like Vivaldi, Blackadder, Edwardian Script. Beware that if a particular font is not available, the default may be used.

 

Colour Blindness.

8% of men have some red-green colour blindness, they want high contrast to increase readability. (note this may be a legal requirement in Europe in the future).

 

Dyslexia

4% of people have some sort of Dyslexia. Most of them (50.1%) find Courier difficult to read and prefer red to green print. Times Roman and Arial are their preferred fonts.

 

Well, if you can make a compromise from the above and get it to work for displays (screen) and Print, you will make a fortune.

[Graeme]

Thanks for the info, Red A!

 

I found it very informative -- you've got enough detail there that it sounds like you either work in the industry, or you've had reason to have researched this previously.

 

It reinforces my feeling that the way I like to read print material is different to the way I like to read online material, and I'm glad that's typical.

[Dusk]

Since we're discussing disability issues, I might as well mention that, being partially sighted, I try to make things as easy as possible for blind and partially sighted readers. This means using alt text on any images at my site, making the navigation easy, and keeping in mind that readers using screen readers can't easily hop around a page to find what they're looking for - unless I provide them with a handy set of links. I go so far as to write my stories in such a way that it's obvious who's talking, even if my reader can't see the quotation marks because his computer is reading the text aloud.

 

Fonts and color contrast don't concern me much as a reader, because my browser is set to override the Webmaster's preference in most cases, but in the rare cases where I come across a story that's anything other than very dark type on a very light background, I skip that story. I'm sure other readers do as well.

[Red_A]

.....

or you've had reason to have researched this previously.

.....

 

I am slightly dyslexic, I find Type writer script(courier) an horror, :wacko: prefer Times Roman, love electronic books that I can read on my Laptop.

 

I rejoiced when Typewriters disapeared, when spell checkers became available and the office became paperless.

 

But my prefered format, is not readable to most people so I had to do some research.

 

I look forward to when owl post and Howlers become readably available, so that I can return, typed letters appropiately.

[Dio]

Hmmm...I prefer smaller condensed fonts. My eyes get tired reading big arse letters, especially when they're thin. Verdana. arial, and TNR are all good at size ten, although twelve works for me too.

 

When colors get too bad I just use the 'no style' feature in FF. I think someone here pointed that feature out for me >_>

[Empathy]

This has been pretty thought provoking. I've actually had a reader write to me a little upset that i started posting my stories in HTML format. Because it didn't make for easy print outs. Which he liked to do to take the stories with him to ready somewhere more comfortable than in front of the computer.

 

I myself do most of my reading on my phone, which has a pretty sophisticated web browser, but still a small screen. And I noticed the difference between stories that are well spaced or the text size is pretty standard.

[Dusk]

If one has the time and the energy, providing alternative formats is helpful to readers. Baen Free Library, for example, offers its e-books in HTML, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket Reader, Rocket E-book, and RTF. I'd suggest HTML, plain text (which can be read by most e-book readers, I've heard, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong), RTF (which can be read by most word processors), and - if it becomes more common - Open Document Format, which is a non-proprietary format similar to RTF.

[Bondwriter]

I had not yet had a look at the accessibility issue, though a relative of mine just lost quite a lot of his eyesight in an accident and this is really interesting to know there are ways to handle this.

Red A's input was helpful. It prompted me to do a little research; I found this article. I have at least a dyslexic reader that I know of and there must be others, so this is something worth thinking about.

As for Dusk's latest recommendation of offering several formats, it means you are also the webmaster!

 

So, for fiction sites, on top of writers, proofreaders and editors, there's a need for "display artists" or "display experts" who handle the text so it's readable for most people. (I think the primary definition of "graphiste" or graphics artist in French has to do with managing and presenting text. I know lots of graphics artists who don't care much about text or text content. Hence some frustration once in a while when I see some websites where text is so ignored the information doesn't come across.)

[Dusk]

Neat! I maintain a number of Web directories for blind readers (including blind readers of gay writings), and I didn't know about this page, nor about the text reader software page it linked to. Thanks!

 

As it happens, I've been corresponding with a dyslexic reader, and I was just about to recommend some text-reading software to him. I'm going to recommend both of these pages to him.

[The Pecman]

I noticed writers post their stories in lots of different formats. Even in the eFiction section, you may make different choices about spacing your paragraphs and line breaks. Some people lost me as a reader because they used a dark blue font color on a black background.

I think you can't go wrong with a very simple formatting, one "BR" (hard return) between paragraphs, and one space between sentences. I agree that just a simple black font on a white or very light gray background works fine. I do recommend going +1 size larger than normal for body text, but that's only my preference, having a 1920x1200 monitor as my main computer monitor.

 

My brother is a graphic artist, and he's often told me that most typesetting experts agree that serif fonts (Times Roman, etc.) work best for readability, but his preference is for sans-serif (Helvetica, etc.) for headlines. I personally don't think it matters much as long as what you do is consistent and readable.

 

I do think it's nutty to throw six different typefaces and cascading stylesheets all over what should be a very simple page, when it comes to online fiction (or articles). Wikipedia is a model for a very clean, readable layout for online articles.

[Dusk]

"My brother is a graphic artist, and he's often told me that most typesetting experts agree that serif fonts (Times Roman, etc.) work best for readability"

 

This is definitely the prevailing opinion where print is concerned; for onscreen reading, the situation is less clear-cut. Here's a summary of the controversy, which also provides a handy explanation of common typography terms.

 

What everyone seems to agree upon is that readers tend to feel most comfortable with what is most familiar. At the moment, that means Times New Roman in most cases. That typeface was originally intended for newspaper use, not story layout (it's a very condensed typeface, so you can get a lot of words onto one page), but because it's the default font in most word processors, people think of it as the "normal" typeface. That may change as more and more readers encounter sanserif online.

 

Another possibility is simply not to specify a font. Then the reader's default font will be used.

[Jack Scribe]

I do recommend going +1 size larger than normal for body text, but that's only my preference, having a 1920x1200 monitor as my main computer monitor.

 

My brother is a graphic artist, and he's often told me that most typesetting experts agree that serif fonts (Times Roman, etc.) work best for readability, but his preference is for sans-serif (Helvetica, etc.) for headlines. I personally don't think it matters much as long as what you do is consistent and readable. layout for online articles.

 

Please allow a smidgen of another spice in this stew.

 

I'll go even further. Some sites, for whatever reason, don't allow the Windows IE "text size" feature to enlarge the size of the font on HTML postings. I recommend that authors post their stories in at least 14 pt. font. I'm going to use 16. pt. on my next story. For readers over a certain age - ahem - larger fonts really help.

 

My friend and editor would agree with Pecman's brother. We settled on Georgia (seen here) as a font that is very palatable to the eye for reading. Several newspapers and book publishers use this font style.

 

Jack

[Jay]

As a reader I will say that I really dislike serif fonts for onscreen reading. I have set all of my browser fonts to be sans serif. If a story forces a font that I don't like I turn off the style sheet. In the case of long stories with many chapters I have (as a learning exercise) gone as far as to download the whole thing along with the style sheet and changed the css. Then I just read my copy.

[Dusk]

Jay wrote:

 

"If a story forces a font that I don't like"

 

My father (who's a book designer) has strong feelings about people reading his site in his preferred fonts, but even he doesn't try to strong-arm them into doing so. I happen to think that one of the strengths of the Web is that - except when bullying attempts take place - readers can read in whatever manner they choose.

 

Jack Scribe wrote:

 

"Some sites, for whatever reason, don't allow the Windows IE 'text size' feature to enlarge the size of the font on HTML postings."

 

<Rolls eyes.> The ones that really get me are the sites (usually discussion boards) whose text bleeds off the end of the screen if you raise the type size higher than "smallest."

 

Dusk (who reads in 28-point type)

[CarlHoliday]

As a former typesetter, I prefer serif fonts for no other reason than tradition. Sans serif fonts were almost exclusively used for display and headlines and not for blocks of text, mostly, I believe, because they don't do well when squeezed together to save space; and, that is always the limitation when dealing with paper, there's only so much paper available for a given project.

 

A computer monitor pretty much does away with the paper limitation allowing sans serif fonts to spread out across a screen using as many pixels as they desire. The website (www.storycove.us) where my story The Pastel Cowboy is published does everything in sans serif. It comes out okay, but like I said I prefer serif fonts. There's only so much you can do with a straight line.

 

[The Pecman]

This is definitely the prevailing opinion where print is concerned; for onscreen reading, the situation is less clear-cut.

Normally, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I have to confess, their Verdana font, which designed for on-screen text (about 10 years ago), is a sans-serif typeface I find to be very readable. They did a good job on it.

 

I agree with the comments above on not specifying a font for an online story, and just letting the reader use the defaults in their own browsers. I find this works very well with allowing readers to enlarge the font size to make it readable on their specific monitors, which is mandatory for this stuff.

 

--Pecman

[mEis]

Uhm... this might sound rude, but as a reader -and a Opera user- when I am reading something online I usually switch to "user mode" that is a Times N Roman black with a light gray background and zoom to 180% the screen

 

It just lets me put my feet on the table and relax on the chair while reading the story...

[adblue]

I'm vision-impaired, so legibility on screen and in print are important to me. I also come at this with some experience in print and on screen.

 

:arrow: Dusk, I'm going to look at that info you have. I need info on text to speech and back, for instance.

 

Another designer's opinion on the challenges and some solutions:

 

Many (or most) programs and people don't know how to provide text that will scale the font-size correctly. This is partially a flaw in how Internet Explorer does things, and partly a limit of the underlying web standards. -- Sizes set as nearly all but the keywords in CSS won't scale, but will remain at a fixed size. That is terrible for anyone with poor eyesight or a poor monitor. -- And Word sets it for a specific point size, because it was designed for print.

 

What shows up on screen and what prints out are currently related, so that you may get a huge, wasteful printout at large sizes of text. -- But if you need large print, it's good.

 

The colors used on screen are not the colors that will print out, and what may look great on one screen may not look good on another. There must be high contrast between the colors in hue, saturation, and value (brightness, lightness) and preferably in more than one of those, for it to be readable.

 

Legibility of lines of text has to do with line length. Too long a line, and the eye gets lost or tired; too short, and the text is too choppy. Most text for stories is done straight across the web page. On 800 x 600 monitors or above, the line length is usually too long. Putting blank space between lines helps. That's why it "looks better" or "more readable" to most people. -- It's better to add space before/after the paragraph; not to type two paragraph returns. (It even saves on the file size.)

 

On screen, sans-serif fonts tend to work better, or some serif fonts. In print, serif fonts tend to work better. But you'll hear heated arguments among designers over the serif/sans issue.

 

How to provide web pages to meet diverse needs is a pet peeve subject for me, because, as a designer, I see how much still needs to be done for everyday users and for people with special needs. Even basics like in print versus on screen, alternate styles for size or color, columns and story block chaining (PageMaker stuff) or text to speech are still hard to do, and most everyday users don't even think of them. -- I could go on a long time, and I've probably gotten too techie or confusing already. (Sorry, it's late and I'm still up, going to bed soon.)

 

I have done things for people who insist on problem choices anyway. They think it looks good or they know better. -- I wish I could convince them otherwise, but I often don't have that choice.