Different Fonts for web pages vs printed page.

David Merchant merchant at bayou.com
Tue Nov 17 15:26:38 EST 1998


>Let's think about this... how can one type of fonting be good for
>online and one for offline? Remember some monitors now have better
>resolution than even printed materials so that argument doesn't wash

It's not just resolution, a monitor screen is just so different from paper:
it's wider, so you can have longer lines of text and we are not used to
reading very long lines of text; it's lighted and flickers which paper
doesn't do; the screen can have a glare on it while paper doesn't normally
glare or not like a screen does; our head is at a different angle to it
than when reading a paper (usually, some monitors are built into or
installed below a desk looking upwards); and a web page can be so much more
"noiser" than a paper page: animated gifs, blinking text, scrolling text or
images, video, etc. 

Thus, I agree that logically a certain typography would be best for web
whilst another would be best for printed page (or that at least if most any
font works for the printed page, that is not true for the web).

TTFN,
David
Systems Librarian 
   Louisiana Tech University
Javascpt list administrator:
   www.mountaindragon.com/javascript/



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