Lessening eye-strain

I always wondered why Blogger has some of their templates so narrow. There is so much empty space on either side of the actual blog page, and that makes the words rather small too. But I don't know how to make my own template, so I have to use one of theirs.

And then there are some blogs I read which have really tiny font. I have known for some time that pressing Ctrl and scrolling the mouse wheel simultaneously enlarges or diminishes the font size on a page. But I don't often think of doing that.

Then some months ago my mother told me about TidyRead, an application which extracts the text from a page to make it a "text-only" page, with font sizes you can choose from. I now have it installed on my bookmarks toolbar, and I click on it any time I get tired of straining my eyes to read a text. (actually, I have come to use it for almost every text I read)

But there is something I don't quite like about TidyRead...when it extracts the text, you don't see any of the sidebar or stuff like that. So when I'm on a friend's blog, using TidyRead will make me miss any changes on the blog below the topmost view (the first part of the blog, that we see when we go to the page) And also, sometimes when a post begins with lots of photos, TidyRead can't recognize that it's an article, so it can't extract.

So one day I thought of doing Ctrl+scroll. It worked pretty well...font as large as TidyRead, with all the stuff "on the side"! And I got a pleasant surprise the next time I visited the same page - the font returned automatically to the size I chose the last time. Which means I don't have to think of it all the time!

Though this method isn't without its drawbacks... For some pages (I don't know why exactly), enlarging the text means that you have to scroll sideways (as well as up and down) to read it. That doesn't happen for most texts, though...I guess it depends on how the word wrap works. (or whether there is word wrap, maybe)

So there you go, two ways to lessen the strain on your eyes if you read a lot on the Internet. Take your pick!