Most A4 documents have margins though, sometimes significant ones, and these can be cropped away when reading on the iPad.
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iPad Pro iPad Pro for reading papers (iPad vs paper)?
- Thread starter hemon
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Most A4 documents have margins though, sometimes significant ones, and these can be cropped away when reading on the iPad.
Once you get used to having everything electronically and always at your fingertips, you won’t go back. I stopped using notebooks at work last year and went totally electronic. I still liked handwriting for taking notes in meetings and actually for my planner but did these things in the Notability app which also has great search ability.
The best thing is that if someone called or emailed me and needed something when I was on travel, I always had it at my fingertips. So just much more efficient.
The workflow with an iPad is;
1- you visit the journals site,
2- download the PDF,
3- read it in color.
And you can browse anywhere you are your neatly organized library of all your articles with tags, folders, from all the years you've been archiving articles.
If you print it you'll probably going to have to;
1-have a desktop or laptop and turn it on,
2- visit the journal's site
3- download the PDF,
4- send it to print (and check that it doesn't jam the printer)
5- read it in grey scale
If you want to read another article you previously printed you'll have to search it in your office, so you must go to the office to begin with, and then find it and carry it. And put it back where you can find it again.
Anything back-lit is going to be less than ideal for extended reading (eye strain), and that includes iPads. It certainly is convenient and is a nice form factor, but if the main purpose is to read on it for long periods of time, I would look for alternatives.
I think you've got your answer right there. Nothing about reading on the iPad appeals to you, so you should save your money and stick with paper. There's no reason to adopt some technology if your gut is telling you you won't experience any advantages. For some, myself included, using the iPad for reading papers is far more productive and useful, but that is not true for everyone, and you shouldn't feel like you're missing something if you don't want to go that way.
This is true. In general I do prefer to use the iPad for reading (as I like to do annotations) but if I have to do this 8 hours straight at work then yeah I agree with you - the iPad would cause eye strain.
I went through grad school reading all of my books on an iPad, works great for that. Now when I read for fun it is on a kindle, but I loved reading for school on the iPad.
if you're in academics (particularly the sciences) and spend a large amount of time reading journal articles, by far and away the best way to read is with a decent quality second monitor turned into portrait orientation
I am in the sciences, and that is the absolute worst way to read a paper. You have to sit at a desk in a fixed pose. Terrible ergonomics, terrible for focus. Before iPad, I would always print out a paper, unless I was just taking a quick glance. Now, I will download a paper to my computer, but then actually read it on iPad.
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It depend on how organized you are. I would print out a lot of papers, read them. Then I would want to go back and check something — but now the printed paper would be lost somewhere, and I would have to wait and print again.
There are many advantages of having everything organized electronically. Once it’s all electronic, reading on iPad is the most natural.
Put me down with another strong vote for reading on the iPad:
- I read a lot of papers for my work - I’d have to chop down a forest or two a day to print them all out (I annotate and cross-reference my materials extensively);
- There are uses for digital annotation that are far more cumbersome in physical form. For instance, I use my notes when writing up reports - I can just search and export them from my PDFs, rather than digging through stacks of photocopies, and then transcribing them.
- There are digital tools that allow for really streamlined workflows - for instance, LiquidText (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liquidtext/id922765270?mt=8) makes it possible to easily cross-link passages within PDFs.
- Finally, the research on digital vs. paper comprehension does not actually show that paper is better - rather, it shows that readers need to take the time to learn good digital reading/annotation techniques. Not to mention staying focused and not opening Facebook every five minutes...
- I read a lot of papers for my work - I’d have to chop down a forest or two a day to print them all out (I annotate and cross-reference my materials extensively);
- There are uses for digital annotation that are far more cumbersome in physical form. For instance, I use my notes when writing up reports - I can just search and export them from my PDFs, rather than digging through stacks of photocopies, and then transcribing them.
- There are digital tools that allow for really streamlined workflows - for instance, LiquidText (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liquidtext/id922765270?mt=8) makes it possible to easily cross-link passages within PDFs.
- Finally, the research on digital vs. paper comprehension does not actually show that paper is better - rather, it shows that readers need to take the time to learn good digital reading/annotation techniques. Not to mention staying focused and not opening Facebook every five minutes...
you gotta do what's best for you, so to each their own.
at least for me, i'm most productive sitting at a desk upright or standing and focused. with a second monitor in portrait orientation, i have a primary monitor for writing notes/generating works cited/writing a manuscript. plenty of screen real estate overall to have numerous word documents open, powerpoints, PDFs, firefox tabs, etc.
i don't quite understand how sitting or standing at a desk is terrible ergonomics. maybe you have a bad desk and chair? how else would get real work done like writing a paper, taking notes on a real piece of paper, or use a computer other than at a desk? good adjustable desks are relatively affordable nowadays. unfortunately a good ergonomic chair is still quite expensive but for something that's used daily, a worthwhile investment.
My reply would be: e-books existed long before Kindle, you could read them on computer, but nobody did it. Why? Because the natural way to read something is having it in the hand, where you can read it wherever you want, at the most comfortable distance to your eyes.
I'm sure there are many people who like to sit and read from a computer screen at a desk, but I think the wast majority of people prefer to read from paper/tablet/e-reader.
But right, to each their own. For me, the most unproductive place to be is at a desk. I do it when I have to write papers, of course. But many people prefer to sit at a desk.
A Kindle is useful but useless if what you are trying to read has any image in it (honestly any ebook with this looks like s.hit in a Kindle). Or if it's organized in a way that can't be in any other format except PDF. It will not be possible to convert to MOBI or any similar Kindle format without major losses.
PDFs from magazines or illustrated books are simply wasted if you try to read in a Kindle. I have several ebooks that are mostly text, and of course OCR was applied to them (in case you don't know what it is: OCR is is a widespread technology to recognise text inside images, such as scanned documents and photos - however it's not something that anyone can do in a couple of hours without a serious review of what the software is doing (it appears to do perfectly yet we can always spot errors), even if I scan at 600 DPI (and I never use less) I always have to make many corrections that are going to waste A LOOOOOOOT OF TIME).
A good number of e-books can only benefit from an iPAD. And of course there are those which never got a Kindle version. I am about to receive a physical book that doesn't have one, so I'll need to take to a place which will then separate all pages (all glued), and once I scan at home I'll return there to bind said book. I'll then sell this physical copy, since I refuse to stick with printed versions once I have the digital ones.
The thing is, this digital copy will be images in a PDF (the scans (JPGs at 600 DPI) are saved in another folder, if in the future I want to apply OCR), even if the book is mostly text. I don't have time to apply OCR, despite the obvious benefits such as reducing the filesize and reading in a Kindle which is easier on the eyes.
As for ergonomics I advise against any studying or reading in bed (where you'll feel more relaxed than concentrated), you need a very good chair and to place the iPAD in a tablet stand which will be at a height so that the top of the screen is at or slightly below eye level. In my case the desk is 91 cm/2.98 ft high.
Very few people have done this, and if you read these instructions, for example
https://www.physiomed.co.uk/well-being-zone/lower-back/guides
You'll realize looking down to read anything (a posture 99.9% users don't see as problematic) isn't going to help you. So what you need to do involves finding a good chair (which is not cheap), a desk with a customized height and a tablet stand. As a complement read this post if you plan to read at night.
All these things are required if you don't want to spoil your experience of using these devices (and health) at the same time.
PDFs from magazines or illustrated books are simply wasted if you try to read in a Kindle. I have several ebooks that are mostly text, and of course OCR was applied to them (in case you don't know what it is: OCR is is a widespread technology to recognise text inside images, such as scanned documents and photos - however it's not something that anyone can do in a couple of hours without a serious review of what the software is doing (it appears to do perfectly yet we can always spot errors), even if I scan at 600 DPI (and I never use less) I always have to make many corrections that are going to waste A LOOOOOOOT OF TIME).
A good number of e-books can only benefit from an iPAD. And of course there are those which never got a Kindle version. I am about to receive a physical book that doesn't have one, so I'll need to take to a place which will then separate all pages (all glued), and once I scan at home I'll return there to bind said book. I'll then sell this physical copy, since I refuse to stick with printed versions once I have the digital ones.
The thing is, this digital copy will be images in a PDF (the scans (JPGs at 600 DPI) are saved in another folder, if in the future I want to apply OCR), even if the book is mostly text. I don't have time to apply OCR, despite the obvious benefits such as reducing the filesize and reading in a Kindle which is easier on the eyes.
As for ergonomics I advise against any studying or reading in bed (where you'll feel more relaxed than concentrated), you need a very good chair and to place the iPAD in a tablet stand which will be at a height so that the top of the screen is at or slightly below eye level. In my case the desk is 91 cm/2.98 ft high.
Very few people have done this, and if you read these instructions, for example
https://www.physiomed.co.uk/well-being-zone/lower-back/guides
You'll realize looking down to read anything (a posture 99.9% users don't see as problematic) isn't going to help you. So what you need to do involves finding a good chair (which is not cheap), a desk with a customized height and a tablet stand. As a complement read this post if you plan to read at night.
All these things are required if you don't want to spoil your experience of using these devices (and health) at the same time.
Completely agree with this! Luckily for me I am forced to do it :lol: . My eye doctor does not allow me to read while in bed or to watch movies in the dark. However I also know why she wants me to do it. I could see reading 5/10 minutes in bed before falling asleep, but to read science papers (that you need to annotate, put notes to it etc) in bed I can't imagine. How one manages to do this? My handwriting would be atrocious if I do this
.Thanks for the link! Interesting read.
Man being in such position for more than 1 hour is so straining for my back and neck. I actually bought a stand for my iPad so that I can put it in another position to be able to read. Of course if I have to annotate stuff that's different matter.
Yeah, you're right. Somehow I want to "force" myself reading scientific papers on the iPad, but at the end of the day I see no really advance in doing this. On the contrary and just for example:
- Annotations (also with Apple Pencil) are slow as I have to pitch-in and pitch-out continually.
- I lost the "material feeling" with the paper and this is for me not comfortable.
- I get easily distracted from notifications and webbrowser just at "two-clicks".
- Also the display of the 12.9 "feels" too small.
- Browsing between the pages is very slow compared to paper.
I hope this discussion is for me self closed.
You need to turn the brightness way-down for comfortable, long term reading. Most people have their screens set far too bright for comfortable use.
Also, endeavour to arrange your work space such that the brightness of the room is comparable to the brightness of your screen. If you are reading a bright screen in a dark room that will very rapidly cause eye strain.
My bachelors degree is in Ergonomics