How zoomed in is your text when you edit? Specifically, about how many characters per line do you see in your screen?
It completely depends on the person. When I edit I have my MS word at 100% but then I write with it at 80% I have always preferred working with a two page screen. It also depends on the manuscript as well. There isn't an easy way to answer this question Amanda
When we edit what? Comments on here or manuscripts at home? Assuming you mean manuscripts, I use courier 12 pt, ordinary size file (Mac Pages), one and a half spacing with margins, so it looks sort of like a4 page typed on the typewriter. I don't zoom in as such.
Some people enjoy reducing or enlarging the fonts, or even changing fonts, so it looks like it might look in a printed-out book or on Kindle. I can see merit in that. Not only will you look at the edit with fresh eyes, but you will see how things actually might LOOK on the page. I know I tend to write in short paragraphs, and looking at my MS this way made me amalgamate a few of them, just to vary the page look. (Obviously following certain rules of paragraphing needs to be done, but there is a lot of leeway in this, I've discovered.)
I used to use Notepad with 80 characters per line, but since upgrading to a wide-screen laptop I've pushed it to 128 characters per line. I'll run it through Word 2003 or something else with a spell checker towards the end, but for now I'm using Notepad for its lack of formatting which helps when I have to transfer from one computer to the next.
I tend to zoom in quite a bit, but that's purely due to vision problems. I do the same with websites.
Yup. Me too. @Lewdog commented once on the ridiculous size of my computer screen and I had to explain that it has nothing to do with hedonism and everything to do with failing up-close vision. I pull Scrivener to full-screen size on a 32" screen.
I will zoom it to 150%, in order that it has more or less the same word length per line as a kindle might, or a paperback. that way, I can see the text as the likely or potential reader will.
The tool that I use for writing on my phone is about thirty characters per line. The compatible tool that it syncs with on the Mac is more like sixty. In BBEdit, I use about 100. When doing Usenet-caveman-style line by line editing of posts > like this I usually wrap to 70 characters, because in the caveman days a lot of apps wrapped to 80, so that avoided the double-wrap ugliness. My blog, on my computer, seems to wrap to about 70. The net result of all these different tools is that I generally treat text as an amorphous flowing thing, without caring much about line width or visual paragraph size. Edited to add: It also means that I prefer ragged-right alignment; small line lengths look terrible when they're right-justified.
I keep experimenting with this. For a long time, I just settled for the Word defaults. When I switched to Scrivener (what a wonderful move that was!) I started playing around, because I like the Inspector on the right. I make lots of notes, so my Inspector is pretty wide. These days, I use Times New Roman 12 point in the editor, zoomed at 135%. It gives me about twenty words on a line, which works out to 120 to 130 characters. This is okay for now, but in a few days I might change it all again. Fortunately, Scrivener lets me compile anything to standard Shunn format, so it doesn't matter what it looks like on the screen - it always looks right when I submit!
I have Scrivener set to 135% or something like that, though I don't know the average characters per line. When I use Scriv's fullscreen mode I've also got 135% zoom but I change the page width to about the same as you get with standard manuscript format.
I have pilot vision, thank you very much. The point is I don't want to move my eyes left and right across the page. I'm pretty slow some times, and only discovered just last night that by zooming in on the text and decreasing the width of the margins, my eyes could focus only on a few words at a time, going straight down the screen. And guess what? I was able to work on my manuscript, late at night, something I usually absolutely cannot do unless super inspired (I wasn't last night). I think zooming in might help relieve strain from the eyes because you don't have to laterally scan, and also might improve focus. I was curious if anyone else also noticed this. Maybe @minstrel and @Komposten?
I use 135% zoom to lessen the strain on the eyes, yes. While I can read the text without problem on lower zoom levels, 135% is easier on my eyes and I still see enough of the text on one screen. As for fullscreen mode, I do find it easier to both read through my stories and see what the end product will look like if I narrow the page down to 12-15 words per row. Though I don't know if the reason for this is that I can keep my focus steady and don't need to scan, as you mention, or if it has to do with the fact that I'm more comfortable with book page width than full screen width.
Call me stupid but I don't understand the question. "How zoomed in...is your text, when you edit? Wait a minute do you mean how accurate is your editing on misplaced words or incorrect tenses? If that's what your asking. Well, not too great to start off with but that may be because I don't leave it long enough. It is recommended that you leave your writing for six weeks before you attempt editing it. I don't. But the other question has me baffled. How many characters per line? Characters as single letters, words or characters as in protagonist and antagonist? Please explain. EDIT: I have read the other posts and gathered that you meant, what size is my text when I edit. size 16 font, when I write and edit, single lined. I don't change it don't see the point. How many characters do I get per line? no idea never counted, more interested in the words than the line count.
Just counted them, 65 characters per line, with 2 cm margins all around. I find that having 1.5 spacing, 1.25 cm indent on every new paragraph, writing in Courier 12 makes it look like a proper manuscript and is a lot more readable then when I use other fonts, smaller or bigger spacing etc.
I don't really understand the question all that well, but my setup looks like this: I write and edit with the same setup. I hope this helps!
