Interesting facts on paper quality (hint for a certain publisher)

[Jukka Juutinen]

I have heard this sorry excuse before. Any book becomes unreadable if the light comes from certain angles and as a person who reads several hours a day I haven´t noticed any particular eye strain due to gloss. I do have experienced eye strain, but due to insufficient lighting, coarsely printed text (one Finnish doctotal thesis on summer 1944 campaign was cheaply printed on matte paper and the text lacked a great deal of crisp) on crude paper, too large and poorly chosen font or too wide column. I have found that Jane´s yearbooks suit my eyes very well, crisp printing, small font and 4 columns per page.

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

There are other practical reasons why most books are not published on high-gloss or semi-gloss paper. Printing large amounts of small text over hundreds of pages is generally not a good idea, because the glare off the glossy surface increases eye strain. That drawback will become more noticable if your room lighting is uneven, in which case you will be rubbing your eyes after a long reading session.

For most people, readability is more important than picture quality, but I can understand why many customers would rather see unit histories and technical histories printed on gloss-coated paper because these tend to contain very many photos, drawings and paintings.