Comments on Why do ebooks often mimic the layout of the printed page?
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Why do ebooks often mimic the layout of the printed page?
I was recently editing a novel destined to be published primarily in e-book form, and made a list of pre-press instructions, to be followed when the final text is agreed upon. Some of these instructions were only needed because the text mimics the printed page, sometimes to the extent of having columns and fully-justified text.
All the e-books I've read use pages. The text is laid out more or less like it would be on a printed page. Why is that? Why not use scrolling text?
There are some advantages to laying out text like this: White space at the end of a chapter is a powerful indicator to the effect that we're done with this bit. Text looks professional and classy when it's laid out on a page.
Why is this done? Is it just because users expect it? Or is there a deeper reason?
By doing a "flip page" style of feature in ebooks, it allows the reader a chance to catch their breath. Try this sometim …
13y ago
Nathan raises an excellent point. WIth scrolling text, you need to put in extra effort to track where you've stopped and …
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It has been my experience that GUI's try to make it easy, and familiar for End Users. In web design, we try stuff that i …
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I think the theories about eye strain is completely valid and may have been part of the thought process. That said, let' …
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By doing a "flip page" style of feature in ebooks, it allows the reader a chance to catch their breath. Try this sometime. Get two copies of the exact same book (preferably in the public domain). Read one formatted for an e-reader, and the other in-line. You'll notice very quickly that with the in-line text, you lose your place easily, your eyes tire quicker, and you may become extremely discouraged reading what seems to be an unending march of text up your screen. Ebook formating on the surface seems to be mostly aesthetic, but there is a large chunk of psychological tricks that help keep us interested and reading the text long after we would have given up otherwise.
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