Re: Making online reading/editing easier (was Online vs paper-based editing)

[Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au>]

Different types of problem become apparent at different scales. Once, I 
printed an entire draft "2-up" (each pair of logical pages shrunk to 50% 
and printed side-by-side on a landscape page).

I was about to toss it in the recycling bin when I noticed a layout 
problem, then, as I flicked through the pages, other problems--all stuff 
I'd missed previously.

I think it was something to do with the text being too small to read 
without straining. Because the reading part of the brain wasn't engaged, 
visual problems related to spacing, alignment, dodgy headers and 
footers, multi-page tables and so on, came to the surface.

So maybe online and paper-based editing complement each other because 
they force you to engage with the text at different levels--words, 
sentences, paragraphs, pages.

Stuart 'can't believe I just wrote "engage with the text"' Burnfield


Peter said:
 > I use both methods. The on-line document is amenable to searching
 > for particular bad constructions and misspellings that won't show
 > up in MS-Wrod's checking software. But the dead tree has not died
 > in vain--badness that was invisible for weeks on the screen leaps
 > from the printed copy.
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