Conversation

Poor performance disrupts nonlinear reading in digital reading

For instance, expert readers generally read non-linearly, but object permanence issues really inhibit that on screens. (notes.andymatuschak.org/Maintaining_mu, notes.andymatuschak.org/Continuous-scr) In many cases (eg. on e-readers) *performance* issues inhibit expert reading! Wild! (notes.andymatuschak.org/Poor_performan)

notes.andymatuschak.org

Of course there are on-screen features which enhance expert reading… but on balance, I'm pretty reliably a worse reader when reading on screens. Not thrilled about needing to solve those problems in addition to all the tools-for-thought ones! What do you find promising here?

Amy Hoy

@amyhoy

on the whole newer physical books are so much worse than they used to be — smaller type, gutters so narrow you can’t see the full beginning of the line, final lines nearly running off the page, your fingers on the edge covers text, tight binding, cheap paper etc

Amy Hoy

@amyhoy

a good PDF would be infinitely preferable and that’s where i’ve been leaning a lot, lately yeah i want an overview mode and the ability to flip around that currently no tools support but i’m bearish on paper books bc publishers suck

4:00 AM · Feb 21, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

@amyhoy

I tend to do digital book reading in PDF rather than ePub too (Google Play's "original pages" feature is a godsend). PDF software at least isn't *laughably* bad, but it's still so dang impoverished for reading as a real use case.

Replying to

and

Back in my PhD days, a huge advantage of PDFs was the non-destructive destruction they afford: infinitely flexible highlighting, move pages around and ‘tear them out’ or recombine into new files, etc, all while keeping the original intact. Commonplace books for the 21st century.