From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" Date: 2006-08-06T01:17:09+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Cookbook - follow on, book-related question Steven R. wrote: > Dave Thomas wrote: >> >> On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:56 PM, John Gabriele wrote: >> >>> No, it's not just you. The font is too wide. Your eyes have to zoom >>> uncomfortably fast back and forth across the page to read sentences at >>> your normal speed (i.e. not enough words per line). Maybe it's done to >>> make the book have more pages, dunno. >> >> >> Actually, we'd love the books to be fewer pages. However, we did a >> fair amount of research on fonts, and we worked with readers early on >> to see what fonts worked for them. The Bookman we use turned out to >> give people the sense of being approachable while still being >> readable. Everyone is different of course, and I understand what >> you're saying about the width. At the same time, I get a fair number >> of e-mails from folks saying they love the layouts. >> >> Every now and then I experiment with changing the fonts around (we >> recently changed the code font in all our books to make it narrower) >> and I'm still open to suggestions. But approachability is still >> important to me, and I wouldn't want to go with anything harsh. >> >> Regards >> >> >> Dave I started out with Pragmatic buying the combo packs, but I've migrated to PDF only. First of all, it's a lot less expensive that way. Second, they're searchable. But the real reason is that I have close to a gigabyte of PDFs (not just Pragmatic) and I can't even begin to think how much space all of those would take up on paper. There are a few times when I need paper -- it's really tough to read a PDF on anything smaller than a notebook, and I ride the light rail in to and home from work. But for the most part, I only buy paper books now when they're only available in that format or they're "collectors items" like my Richard Bellman collection. Another *real* advantage to the PDF is that they can be easily updated. The Pragmatic folks have this down to an art. > >