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Simon (Ted) Edwards Inner circle London 1528 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-12-16 04:34, phillsmiff wrote: I do exactly the same thing. Also, many people may not realise that properly printed and bound books usually need to have a page count divisible by eight. This is due to the way that professional printers work. So even if you condense all of the text, with no white space, you'll end up with a few blank pages at the back. Hence the 'intentionally blank' notes you sometimes see. Dense text is really hard to read. Sometimes even increasing the space between lines and paragraphs (the 'leading') makes a page easier to read. Could this be seen as a way to inflate the page count? Maybe, by the paranoid It's all about readability. Obviously there are going to be exceptions. T. |
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mastermindreader 1949 - 2017 Seattle, WA 12586 Posts |
Now if Dickens had known about leaving more white space he would have been a much better writer.
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phillsmiff Inner circle UK 1794 Posts |
No-one said it would affect the quality of writing, but it does affect the *perception* of quality.
Dickens actually is an interesting case - he was one of the first novelists to publish their work in serial form *whilst it is being written* as opposed to after completion. Rather than being separated with white space, the chapters of his books were originally separated by time, and because he wrote specifically for this format his work was quite distinctive and suited the popular taste at the time (plus the audiences knew that whilst they were sitting wondering what was going to happen next, so was Dickens himself). When his stories were collected together and typeset by Chapman and Hall the original layouts used white space and often distinctive illustrations purposely to reflect and visually reinforce the structure that had been established by the serial publication - had the pressings ignored the structure rather than directly addressing it then the very patterns that people enjoyed in his work would have been hidden rather then emphasised. Perhaps white space didn't make Dickens a better writer but his quality of writing and the widespread acceptance of his work is intrinsically linked to the use of white space in their publication. Or maybe the design and layout of books actually has no effect on people's enjoyemnt of them and we should all just set everything in 5pt comic sans so we can fit more stuff in fewer pages. I'll pitch that to my next client ;-) Phill
The new Elysian Duets, marked cards featuring my unique Optical Marking System:
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mastermindreader 1949 - 2017 Seattle, WA 12586 Posts |
Phill-
I was only joking!! Did you see the little eek face after my sentence? :eek: For what it's worth, I agree with you! Best- Bob |
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phillsmiff Inner circle UK 1794 Posts |
LOL, I am clearly way too touchy about the day job!
Phill
The new Elysian Duets, marked cards featuring my unique Optical Marking System:
-+: https://phillsmithcreative.com/products/elysian-duets :+- |
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Simon (Ted) Edwards Inner circle London 1528 Posts |
Great post, regardless.
T. |
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mastermindreader 1949 - 2017 Seattle, WA 12586 Posts |
Yes. It was a great post. And it's always refreshing to know that others appreciate, and have a firm grounding in, the classics of literature.
Best- Bob |
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Joshua Quinn Inner circle with an outer triangle 2054 Posts |
This topic leaves me feeling little sympathy for either side. Authors who inflate their page count and use it as a selling point, probably have little else to offer. And consumers who foolishly allow themselves to be swayed by something as meaningless as page count probably deserve what they get. Word count would be a much more useful "currency" for those who care about such things, though most people have no frame of reference for it. I once had someone ask me how many words were in a book I had written, because he wanted the one he was writing to be about the same length. I told him that A) I had no idea, as it had never even occurred to me to wonder (though I did look it up once he asked), and B) that was an incredibly bad way to gauge how long his own book should be.
Remember too that in this regard, physical books and ebooks are decidedly different creatures. Blank pages that seem obvious and necessary in a physical book, where you're dealing with two-page spreads, can seem superfluous and annoying in an ebook. Ideally the author/designer/typesetter will take this into consideration. If you're reading a PDF that's been formatted to be printed as a physical book, then you can expect some blank pages. Phil, I never knew that about Dickens. Thanks for the informative post.
Every problem contains the seeds of its own solution. Unfortunately every problem also contains the seeds of an infinite number of non-solutions, so that first part really isn't super helpful.
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phillsmiff Inner circle UK 1794 Posts |
Yup, I'm every kind of nerd rolled into one. Now back to writing code (at ten oclock on a Friday night)
:-( Phill
The new Elysian Duets, marked cards featuring my unique Optical Marking System:
-+: https://phillsmithcreative.com/products/elysian-duets :+- |
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