Walt Crawford has raised the issue of blog printability again. It seems that he is irritated that no improvements have been made since the last time he raised this issue 18 months ago. I think that my position has also changed in the intervening time. Back then I felt slightly apologetic about the problem. Now I just feel defiant.
Here’s what I have to say about printability on this blog.
1. This blog is designed to be read on a screen. If a post looks bad or unreadable in a particular browser or news aggregator, I want to know about it and will try to remedy the problem when feasible. Although people may use the blog in other ways, I do not feel obliged to support these other uses from my end.
2. I never print my own blog and I would prefer that other people did not either. This is an online, not a printed publication, and for environmental reasons, I want it to stay that way. Although I would never forbid printing or actively place measures to make this blog difficult to print, I am not going to lose sleep about TypePad’s printing defect. I respectfully disagree with Walt Crawford's premise that words must be printed on paper to be fully appreciated.
3. This is a self-published blog which I write for my own purposes. Much of the time there seems to be an intersection between what I’m offering here and what readers might be looking for, but when there isn’t such an intersection, that’s ok because that’s not what this blog is about. If you’re a reader and you don’t like this attitude or me or my posts or anything else, it’s your right not to continue reading this blog. But nobody has the right to demand changes or feel entitled to lay down the mores or rules for other bloggers.
