Reading ebooks - do you print or squint?

Sat in the chair at the bottom of the garden. He flipped open his Dell Insuperion III Deluxe with Five gig Ram and 39 terrabyte HD. Turned it on and waited for his desktop to appear.

Once the Windows 2038 Second Edition software had loaded, he clicked his Adobe Acrobat 14 reader icon. After it started he opened one of the ebooks he had bought the night before.

He started with "Biggles Flys To New York". The book's promo said it was for those with poor eye sight. But he didn't expect size 20 font. Holy cow... it was HUGE... everything on the page was THIS BIG. It was an assult on his eyes. And it made the ebook incredibly lo-o-o-o-ng. Way to long to print. In fact, it was uncomfortable to read at that font size.

So he opened up the other book he bought. It was called, Windows For FudgeMudgins (which is the word for Dummies in the future time he lives). But dang... the font was impossible to read... It looked like this even after using the Zoom feature that comes with the Acrobat Reader.

He opened the third book. It was called Debbie Learns C++++++++++. The font was this size - normal size. Ideal for printing out on paper. Easy to read on the screen. Can be zoomed in on to increase the size as seen on the screen... and doesn't make the book longer in page numbers to give a false impression. Why, the book even had normal margins instead of three inch wide margins. Which, authors claim is for notes, but which also conveniently increases the length of the book five fold.

He read the book, tried out the example code and was pleased. He leant back against the chair's back rest, closed his eyes and dreamt of a time when eBook authors would follow a standard, middle of the road approach to fonts, like those who print hard copy books do. Size 12 font is okay...