A bit of typographical common sense wouldn't go astray.

Brodie Allen · Guru

A bit of typographical common sense wouldn't go astray.

Tony LEE · Guru

In fact hitting return makes a shambles of any formatting as whatever you are reading it on should automatically adjust the line length to suit the display. We have moved on from the old typewriters with the carriage return lever

Tony LEE · Guru

So is your post written tongue in cheek or was it serious.

Brodie Allen · Guru

Dead serious.

Can't you see the stupidity of forever long lines that just go with the width of the page?

Notice my posts. Don't tell me that that's not easier than yours would be if you had a
couple of similarly long lines. It's about eye travel going back to the correct next line
in the conversation.

'Nuff now. Made my point. the post was meant for posters information, not for fun.

B

dorian · Guru

I can see the point of the OP's complaint, but I still prefer to let the browser dictate the width of the line. I don't have a smartphone, but I imagine they would make a mess of the formatting on their small screens. In fact, I shrunk the window on my laptop and was able to demonstrate this problem.

Are We Lost · Guru

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I find Tony Lee's post easier to read. Perhaps a compromise between the two would be best although as pointed out you can usually do that by making the view smaller in the browser.

As you can probably see by mine, I like 2-3 sentences in a paragraph and it is formatted automatically. Then a break to the next paragraph.

Just to clarify, is this what you see when you post, or is it laid out differently?

Are We Lost · Guru

And here is another image, this time with the window dragged smaller, as you may do on a phone. Not very readable at all.

Post 2.jpg

If you are putting a Return before you go off the page then it appears that you are typing your posts on a device with a small screen. That may suit viewing with a similar device, but if you chose to let it format automatically it would be presented to the viewer in the layout preferred by that viewer regardless of screen size. Also, maybe you are not seeing that it gets double spaced.

The posts I find difficult are those with multiple lines of content in one large paragraph. That may be OK for a novel but I believe most like to see online content broken into smaller chunks. I note on other threads there are a couple of such posts this morning. Break them into smaller chunks but never mid sentence.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Tuesday 29th of August 2023 11:30:25 AM

Whenarewethere · Guru

I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.

Mark Twain

dorian · Guru

One more observation ...

If your eyesight is failing and you like to zoom up the display (like many of us), see what happens when you type "Ctrl +" a few times.

Long Weekend · Guru

dorian wrote:
One more observation ...

If your eyesight is failing and you like to zoom up the display (like many of us), see what happens when you type "Ctrl +" a few times.

You can achieve the same effect by clicking on the three dots at the far-right hand top of the screen, then clicking on the 'zoom' plus or minus sign as wanted. The 'zoom' function shows the percentage - such as +125%

Murray

shakey55 · Senior Member

-- Edited by shakey55 on Thursday 31st of August 2023 06:16:52 AM

Tony LEE · Guru

Sorry Brodie, but as others have pointed out, your posts end up being a dog's breakfast of long and short lines, and variable number of blank lines that are hard to read.

Brodie Allen · Guru

A lot of non-comprehension exhibited here by reply posters.

How would you like your newspaper to have full page width
lines instead of the short justified lines that are so easy to read?

You'd need a ruler to place under the line just read to be able to reliably
follow the script back to the beginning of the next line to follow.

Maybe landscape format books would be recommended by some
posters above so that there could be longer lines.

Come on!

B

(And Tony Lee - there unfortunately isn't a justification facility
provided in the program).

yobarr · Guru

Brodie Allen wrote:
A lot of non-comprehension exhibited here by reply posters.

How would you like your newspaper to have full page width
lines instead of the short justified lines that are so easy to read?

You'd need a ruler to place under the line just read to be able to reliably
follow the script back to the beginning of the next line to follow.

Maybe landscape format books would be recommended by some
posters above so that there could be longer lines.

Come on!

B

(And Tony Lee - there unfortunately isn't a justification facility
provided in the program).

Sorry Brodie, but personally I find your posts a lot harder to read than a post with lines that span the width of the page.

And I simply cannot understand how anyone can bleat that "the eye cannot easily jump to the next line without 'following the dots' back to the beginning as I have never experienced any difficulty at all.

It just comes naturally to me, and I have NEVER got lost on a page. Each to their own, I suppose, but I'll continue as normal. Cheers

Are We Lost · Guru

Brodie, removing the double spacing helped, but sorry, I find it much harder to read than a free flowing one.

But I will agree that very long lines are not good either. There is a compromise somewhere between that may differ person to person. While on a PC, the answer is simple ..... just drag the page width a bit smaller. On a phone or other small touch screen, pinch the display to make the font larger or smaller to suit the viewer's preference and it auto formats to the width of the screen.

I read words in groups of maybe three words, typically phrases, not one at a time. It happens subconsciously so it's hard to be sure but for the first sentence in this paragraph, I think my mind sees it as:

"I read" "words in groups" "not" "one at a time".

So a longer line works better because there are less broken groups, and less times that our eyes have to do the "carriage return".

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Saturday 2nd of September 2023 12:33:59 AM

Brodie Allen · Guru

Can I suggest that you Google:

Typography Design Line Length

to get a bit of others take on the subject. Our perception of graphics
and readability is corrupted by the digital age and the ignorance of
school and even University teachings - or should I say lack of teaching.

I trained as Compositor and after 5 years of technical work in one of
the more prestigious jobbing chapels and two years university in
Graphics I must say that I am apalled at some of the nearly illegible
typography of some written material.

Even this program has its difficulties in that it makes every new line
to begin with a capital. Obviously written by a student of digital
modernity.

Go google it and see what you think.

B

dorian · Guru

Brodie Allen wrote:
Can I suggest that you Google:

Typography Design Line Length

Firefox has a "toggle reader view" feature that does EXACTLY what you want. However, your text becomes a long-and-short mess.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages

https://superuser.com/questions/1113362/is-there-a-way-to-force-enable-reader-view-in-firefox-on-pages-where-the-icon-do#1113363

There is also a Postlight Reader extension for your browser - "clear away the clutter from all of your articles. Instantly." I use this with Chrome / Edge.

Edge's equivalent to Firefox's Reader View is "Immersive Reader". It is accessible via an icon in the address bar or by typing F9.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/use-immersive-reader-in-microsoft-edge-78a7a17d-52e1-47ee-b0ac-eff8539015e1

-- Edited by dorian on Saturday 2nd of September 2023 10:38:54 AM

Are We Lost · Guru

Brodie, you piqued my interest in this subject and I did a bit of site checking with rough word numbers per line. It seems most sites do indeed limit the width of the line, but then if the page is dragged narrower it autoformats the text. But most are longer than your word count.

Also, few now put their content in more than 1-2 sentences per paragraph. For example, try this ABC News article this morning (ignore the unrelated content of the article). 26 sentences in 26 separate paragraphs. About 15 words per line. I thought they did the short lines so they could display numerous other links on the same page .... maybe it's a combination of both ideas.

ABC News article

Looking at other forums, Whirlpool maximises at about 18-20 words width, but autoformats when the page is narrowed. Ozbargain maxes out at around 25 words per line and again autoformats for narrower. The other popular caravan forum is slightly wider at maybe 30 words per line, again, autoformats. This site appears to be unlimited line length, only changed according to the width of the viewer's window.

I think I realise the problem now. I use Windows as it was designed. Rarely full screen. See the images I posted earlier. As I type this I see it formats to about 35-40 words per line. That is the way I like it. I don't like it if I display the page full screen because the lines are too long. I am guessing you are not using the OS or browser as designed .... whichever the OS or browser. All the common ones are designed for windows to be used at the size the viewer wants. With free format text it will then display fine whether on small mobile screen or 32 inch monitor.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Saturday 2nd of September 2023 01:38:08 PM

Whenarewethere · Guru

We should be using serif fonts & not sans-serif fonts as there are easier to read.

dorian · Guru

Are We Lost wrote:
Brodie, you piqued my interest in this subject and I did a bit of site checking with rough word numbers per line. It seems most sites do indeed limit the width of the line, but then if the page is dragged narrower it autoformats the text. But most are longer than your word count.
I think I realise the problem now. I use Windows as it was designed. Rarely full screen.

I think the solution is for Brodie to shrink the window to his preferred size and let the browser wrap his lines. Then everyone is happy.

Whenarewethere · Guru

& if want to write a rude word like Cocklebiddy.

Screenshot_20230902-163312~2.png

Select half the rude word. Then the easiest is to bold those few letters. Then click the HTML tab & change strong to span.