It would be good to figure out how many people actually care about printability. Perhaps what you could do is:
1. HTML is the primary format for articles. Authors can do whatever tricks they like in CSS, but are encouraged to make their layouts reasonably responsive. JS should be limited to things that actually benefit the article (such as LaTeX rendering or simple live examples).
2. The article must fit on one page when printed to PDF using a mainstream Web browser.
3. The author should provide a PDF file. It could just be the output of printing the HTML to PDF from a browser, or it could be something fancier, as long as it fits on a page and has the same text as the HTML version.
Looking at the most recent issue, most articles could be faithfully reproduced with a typical modern Markdown implementation (one that supports tables and code highlighting, and maybe LaTeX math) and some simple CSS.
> It would be good to figure out how many people actually care about printability.
The final goal is to do mass prints of Paged Out! to give out at events. We've already done that once, and we're chatting with sponsors and events about doing more of this. And actually "how can I get a printed issue" is THE most common question we get from readers. So there's interest in a printed version from both sides (readers + our team).
With regards to the HTML idea – it was something I considered as well (and an idea I come back to from time to time). The issues that made me decide against it are:
- Not everyone knows HTML/CSS on a level that would allow them to express what they want. This would downgrade the "creativeness" of layouts. While some typical text processors or WYSIWYG editors can output decent HTML, that's not true across the board.
- Asking authors to do more work (especially to fight with making sure HTML behaves correctly when printing to PDF), would have a negative effect – I a significant chunk of authors would pull out.
- It does solve readability issues for typical text layouts. It doesn't solve them for more creative layouts, especially on mobile phones.
- For better or worse almost every newsletter, blog, news website, etc on the internet uses HTML format. I think I prefer PO! to stay in the magazine category.
Anyway, I'm going to be revisiting this idea from time to time, especially if PO! happens to get more funding for whatever reason.
For articles with more complicated layout needs, the HTML version could be simplified, uglier, designed with wider accessibility in mind. But the PDF version would be the one where the pretty, print-friendly layout could shine.
1. HTML is the primary format for articles. Authors can do whatever tricks they like in CSS, but are encouraged to make their layouts reasonably responsive. JS should be limited to things that actually benefit the article (such as LaTeX rendering or simple live examples).
2. The article must fit on one page when printed to PDF using a mainstream Web browser.
3. The author should provide a PDF file. It could just be the output of printing the HTML to PDF from a browser, or it could be something fancier, as long as it fits on a page and has the same text as the HTML version.
Looking at the most recent issue, most articles could be faithfully reproduced with a typical modern Markdown implementation (one that supports tables and code highlighting, and maybe LaTeX math) and some simple CSS.