4 ms·

I made a little Knuth/Plass experiment using canvas and opentype.js here: http://kevinmahoney.co.uk/document-experiment/ http://kevinmahoney.co.uk/document-expe

by kpmah 11y ago

I made a little Knuth/Plass experiment using canvas and opentype.js here: http://kevinmahoney.co.uk/document-experiment/ http://kevinmahoney.co.uk/document-experiment/ I find pagination much easier to read than scrolling.

bhaak 11y ago
It depends on the content. Reading a web page is different than reading a book. I prefer pagination on a longer text that is meant to be read linearly but scrolling and scanning for a typical web page text. But then I also prefer pagination on devices that actually are meant for it. Reading a book on a laptop screen is an inferior experience to reading it on paper or at least on a dedicated hardware e-book reader. Jakob Nielsen's AlertBox columns suggest the same thing: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web... http://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-reading/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-reading/ Nevertheless, your experiment looks good although I had to make my browser windows smaller. Before I only saw one page because there is not enough text to trigger pagination.
e12e 11y ago
Very nice. Have you compared your approach to simply enabling css-hyphens in eg: Firefox? The chrome team apparently doesn't believe in hyphenation, but for me just having a sane column width, normal left justified text -- and enabling hyphenation does wonders for the readability.
- kpmah 11y ago
  Hyphenation is nice, but the Knuth/Plass line breaking really helps too, even with left justified text. The 'first fit' algorithms browsers tend to use can leave some ugly and confusing artefacts.
  - e12e 11y ago
    > even with left justified text Just to clarify: Do you mean just breaking on whole words, with no hyphenation looks better with Knuth/Plass than typical browser line breaking?

by kpmah 11y ago

bhaak 11y ago

It depends on the content. Reading a web page is different than reading a book. I prefer pagination on a longer text that is meant to be read linearly but scrolling and scanning for a typical web page text. But then I also prefer pagination on devices that actually are meant for it. Reading a book on a laptop screen is an inferior experience to reading it on paper or at least on a dedicated hardware e-book reader. Jakob Nielsen's AlertBox columns suggest the same thing: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web... http://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-reading/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-reading/ Nevertheless, your experiment looks good although I had to make my browser windows smaller. Before I only saw one page because there is not enough text to trigger pagination.

e12e 11y ago

Very nice. Have you compared your approach to simply enabling css-hyphens in eg: Firefox? The chrome team apparently doesn't believe in hyphenation, but for me just having a sane column width, normal left justified text -- and enabling hyphenation does wonders for the readability.

kpmah 11y ago
Hyphenation is nice, but the Knuth/Plass line breaking really helps too, even with left justified text. The 'first fit' algorithms browsers tend to use can leave some ugly and confusing artefacts.
- e12e 11y ago
  > even with left justified text Just to clarify: Do you mean just breaking on whole words, with no hyphenation looks better with Knuth/Plass than typical browser line breaking?