4 ms·

What's your workflow for getting digital text into print? Additionally, what display do you use and how do you ensure it's calibrated?

AnthonBerg 4y ago
Ha!, it hadn’t occurred to me to call it a workflow – but it is, I guess. Sometimes it’s just hitting Print in the browser. Sometimes I turn on Safari’s Reader view and print that. For some reason, things printed on the Booklet setting tend to get read sooner. (“Booklet” is a macOS printing feature. It prints two pages on each sheets and orders them so the pile of paper can be keel-stapled into a booklet. Some printer drivers have it too, and Acrobat Reader as well I believe.) I try to have fonts set to those two ones I mentioned. Through overrides or preferences. On occasion I’ve converted to Markdown and applied a stylesheet. This seems to work. I read a bit more. Get around to it easier. It might be the ritual, it might be the result. Probably both. I tend to be quite picky about monitors, though I wish I wasn’t. (It’s a handicap, being this fussy!) The models I end up buying tend to be pretty well calibrated from the factory. LG IPS monitors are good. Right now I have an LG CX 55” OLED TV as my programming display. It is very good. It’s fussy to set up; macOS doesn’t support HDMI 2.1 so right now it isn’t possible to get full, crisp 4:4:4 color and 120Hz at the same time. I go with 120Hz 4:2:0; Some color/background combos are noticeably blurry, but the fluidity of 120Hz is so, so nice. I don’t agree with it or want it to be that way, but it is :) I want a color calibrator. Haven’t got one yet. I have borrowed one on occasion from a photographer friend. I find that it makes a difference. There isn’t a glaringly obvious difference, but everything feels tighter and more relaxed at the same time. Grays are more neutral, colors are more vividly themselves. It’s easier on the brain? Kind of like putting fresh tires on a car. Or working in a quieter place. It adds up. Last time I looked at color calibration devices, the info over at the DisplayCAL site seemed to be very good: https://displaycal.net/ https://displaycal.net/
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  … and I have an HP m254dw color laser printer that can print on both sides of the paper. It's been worth it! I read WAY more after buying it. And, heh, I feel obliged to mention the long-arm stapler too. I have a Zenith 502 long-arm stapler. It can easily keel-staple folded A4 or Letter paper. And it's a really good stapler. Staples everything, first try, also really thick bundles of paper. It's funny how big a difference a silly thing like a particular staper makes. They're made for a reason! Here's the Zenith 502 CUCITRICI DA TAVOLO: https://www.zenith.it/prodotti/cucitrici-da-tavolo/zenith-502/ https://www.zenith.it/prodotti/cucitrici-da-tavolo/zenith-50... (Cucitrici – stapler – means "seamstress-er". Haha.)
  - drBonkers 4y ago
    Thanks for all this info. It took me a couple minutes but I found the booklet print mode under Print > Layout > Two-Sided > Booklet. It makes more sense after I printed a few pages out and folded them. What a delightful little feature— much better size for taking on the go. Right now I work with a 32" 4K monitor with the UI scaled and siting about 6 feet away. You've inspired me to get a bigger monitor, mount it, and sit across the room from it. I can also commiserate with being fussy. Sometimes I don't know if it's easier to satisfy or to push back against my own inclinations. Your colored laser printer and stapler sound amazing as well. When you say keel-stapled, is that to staple across what would be the spine of a book(let)?
    - AnthonBerg 4y ago
      Yes!, that’s what keel-stapled means to me. (It might be an idiom from my mother tongue?) Thank you for your understanding!! Sincerely. I honestly didn’t know I had so much to say about the process of reading or how much I had thought about it. It’s kind of after the fact that I realize it – my fiancee was very ill during 2020; Undiagnosed for uncomfortably long. Reading scientific papers kept us afloat. Her physically and me mentally. So it can all be described as a silly and charming little hobby part by part, and it’s also a centerpiece of a significant period in life. The little color laser and its whirring sounds and puffs of ozone, and the eccentric little stapler and myself the funny man downstairs folding and straightening PDF files.
      - drBonkers 4y ago
        You have a way with composition— potentially with spice added via idioms from your mother tongue. Do you write and publish?

AnthonBerg 4y ago

Ha!, it hadn’t occurred to me to call it a workflow – but it is, I guess. Sometimes it’s just hitting Print in the browser. Sometimes I turn on Safari’s Reader view and print that. For some reason, things printed on the Booklet setting tend to get read sooner. (“Booklet” is a macOS printing feature. It prints two pages on each sheets and orders them so the pile of paper can be keel-stapled into a booklet. Some printer drivers have it too, and Acrobat Reader as well I believe.) I try to have fonts set to those two ones I mentioned. Through overrides or preferences. On occasion I’ve converted to Markdown and applied a stylesheet. This seems to work. I read a bit more. Get around to it easier. It might be the ritual, it might be the result. Probably both. I tend to be quite picky about monitors, though I wish I wasn’t. (It’s a handicap, being this fussy!) The models I end up buying tend to be pretty well calibrated from the factory. LG IPS monitors are good. Right now I have an LG CX 55” OLED TV as my programming display. It is very good. It’s fussy to set up; macOS doesn’t support HDMI 2.1 so right now it isn’t possible to get full, crisp 4:4:4 color and 120Hz at the same time. I go with 120Hz 4:2:0; Some color/background combos are noticeably blurry, but the fluidity of 120Hz is so, so nice. I don’t agree with it or want it to be that way, but it is :) I want a color calibrator. Haven’t got one yet. I have borrowed one on occasion from a photographer friend. I find that it makes a difference. There isn’t a glaringly obvious difference, but everything feels tighter and more relaxed at the same time. Grays are more neutral, colors are more vividly themselves. It’s easier on the brain? Kind of like putting fresh tires on a car. Or working in a quieter place. It adds up. Last time I looked at color calibration devices, the info over at the DisplayCAL site seemed to be very good: https://displaycal.net/ https://displaycal.net/

AnthonBerg 4y ago
… and I have an HP m254dw color laser printer that can print on both sides of the paper. It's been worth it! I read WAY more after buying it. And, heh, I feel obliged to mention the long-arm stapler too. I have a Zenith 502 long-arm stapler. It can easily keel-staple folded A4 or Letter paper. And it's a really good stapler. Staples everything, first try, also really thick bundles of paper. It's funny how big a difference a silly thing like a particular staper makes. They're made for a reason! Here's the Zenith 502 CUCITRICI DA TAVOLO: https://www.zenith.it/prodotti/cucitrici-da-tavolo/zenith-502/ https://www.zenith.it/prodotti/cucitrici-da-tavolo/zenith-50... (Cucitrici – stapler – means "seamstress-er". Haha.)
- drBonkers 4y ago
  Thanks for all this info. It took me a couple minutes but I found the booklet print mode under Print > Layout > Two-Sided > Booklet. It makes more sense after I printed a few pages out and folded them. What a delightful little feature— much better size for taking on the go. Right now I work with a 32" 4K monitor with the UI scaled and siting about 6 feet away. You've inspired me to get a bigger monitor, mount it, and sit across the room from it. I can also commiserate with being fussy. Sometimes I don't know if it's easier to satisfy or to push back against my own inclinations. Your colored laser printer and stapler sound amazing as well. When you say keel-stapled, is that to staple across what would be the spine of a book(let)?
  - AnthonBerg 4y ago
    Yes!, that’s what keel-stapled means to me. (It might be an idiom from my mother tongue?) Thank you for your understanding!! Sincerely. I honestly didn’t know I had so much to say about the process of reading or how much I had thought about it. It’s kind of after the fact that I realize it – my fiancee was very ill during 2020; Undiagnosed for uncomfortably long. Reading scientific papers kept us afloat. Her physically and me mentally. So it can all be described as a silly and charming little hobby part by part, and it’s also a centerpiece of a significant period in life. The little color laser and its whirring sounds and puffs of ozone, and the eccentric little stapler and myself the funny man downstairs folding and straightening PDF files.
    - drBonkers 4y ago
      You have a way with composition— potentially with spice added via idioms from your mother tongue. Do you write and publish?