PDF - Portrait or Landscape

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

22" WS monitors with pivot function can be had for cheap. I don't understand why people see them as expensive, or for that matter, why they'd bother with anything less than say, 22". Even 24" or so can be bought new for not so much at all.

Define cheap.

I could go out and buy a monitor and probably not worry much about it. My sisters could not. I could probably also buy one of these fancy EEPCs or other subnotebooks just to see what's the fuzz all about. My sisters won't. (I won't either - I simply have no use for it)

What's cheap for you, or what's cheap for me, is not cheap for everyone. For some, it's a real investment, possibly being the only "big" thing to buy for a few months...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, generally monitors come with any computer setup you might buy. If it doesn't come with one of decent size and specs, an upgrade will usually mean a minimal difference, relative to the overall cost.

Or, if you're upgrading your monitor only, around here that'd be (for example) $275 (AUD, so even less in USD) for a 22" widescreen monitor that pivots, with a 2ms (GtG) response time. Which is neither too shoddy for general use, nor - I would have thought - extortionate. After all, my pretty damn average CRT monitor wasn't much less than that at all, not so very long ago.

Anyway, I realise not everyone can afford what I might consider a decent monitor, but I honestly had thought that those people buying computers in the first place could do it, reasonably easily - should they wish to, etc.

And given that LCD is by far the standard now, I still don't see how I could've been way off.

But yeah sure, 'cheap' is arguable. As is 'expensive', or any nearly other word.

 

[Leatherhead]

PDF - Portrait or Landscape

We seem to be seeing more and more material being released in the once-shunned landscape format. Here's your chance to sound off in a simple binary poll that is bound to frost someone's ass. Be sure to post and tell me how you wish there were more options.

I would like a more printer friendly pdf file, but landscape looks good on the computer.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, generally monitors come with any computer setup you might buy. If it doesn't come with one of decent size and specs, an upgrade will usually mean a minimal difference, relative to the overall cost.

Or, if you're upgrading your monitor only, around here that'd be (for example) $275 (AUD, so even less in USD) for a 22" widescreen monitor that pivots, with a 2ms (GtG) response time. Which is neither too shoddy for general use, nor - I would have thought - extortionate. After all, my pretty damn average CRT monitor wasn't much less than that at all, not so very long ago.

Anyway, I realise not everyone can afford what I might consider a decent monitor, but I honestly had thought that those people buying computers in the first place could do it, reasonably easily - should they wish to, etc.

You're assuming people buy their computers often. For some, one computer in 5 years is all they can/will afford, and it is one of their major expenses.

And then - the human eyefield is wide, not high. Turning your monitor by 90° means using less of you eyefield.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You're assuming people buy their computers often. For some, one computer in 5 years is all they can/will afford, and it is one of their major expenses.

You're assuming that I'm assuming that. And I'm not.

I know people all along that tech-devouring spectrum. Hardcore gamers, old folks with really old machines; the lot.

And then - the human eyefield is wide, not high. Turning your monitor by 90° means using less of you eyefield.

Fair enough. News to me, that that would matter. For instance, I - and other people I know - have no issues at all reading a single page, well many single pages, in an A4 (or similarly dimensioned) RPG book. That's kinda vertical-heavy, no?

Regardless, do I have a deal for you! That is to say, remove forementioned function and shave about $25 off its price. So, $250 odd. A bit less in USD, is something I would assume.

 

[Ander00]

Depends on the document. Short articles, possibly with a bunch of stat-blocks, work well enough in landscape format. For larger ones, where I will usually have the bookmarks or thumbnails open on the side, I prefer portrait.


cheers

 

[Vanuslux]

It looks like landscape has this poll in the bag, which is disappointing to me since I'm one of those people who prefers to print his PDFs. Landscape is great for reading onscreen, but terrible for printing and binding. God bless those PDF publishers that offer both formats.

 

[freyar]

Something I've been thinking about during the poll, esp since I realized I really do prefer landscape but usually read portrait on-screen:

What are the differences in formatting that publishers have to consider when doing lay out for landscape vs portrait? For example, I have a good idea about laying out a 3.5 statblock in 2 columns on portrait, and I think it looks pretty reasonable. How would this example be different in landscape?

 

[Delta]

I voted Portrait. In the past I thought the Landscape would be better, but then I realized the following:

(a) My PDF reader can just display Portrait in two facing pages, giving me effective landscape for reading on a monitor.
(b) My PDF reader can also print out Portrait pages "booklet style" for a very nice half-size booklet with a staple through the middle. Landscape makes that pagination process impossible.

So Portrait gives me the best of both worlds for reading & printing.

 

[jmucchiello]

And then - the human eyefield is wide, not high. Turning your monitor by 90° means using less of you eyefield.

Wide eyefield is unimportant. Column widths are usually kept to 4 inches (10 cm) or less in order to make reading easier. It's hard for the eye to trackback to the beginning of wide columns. So whether the page is 8 inches wide or 12 inches wide just determines whether there should be 2 or 3 columns.

My dislike of landscape PDFs is they are usually still have only 2 columns, making column widths around 5 inches. Combined with a 10pt or smaller font this makes it easy to make reading mistakes tracking back to the front of the next line. Larger fonts can make wider columns easier to track but the larger the font the fewer words on the page elevating the page count needlessly. Printing landscape PDFs wastes more paper IME for these reasons.