DPI Increase and the Effect on the Web

My current DPI setting is at 96. That means that I can fit 96 times 96 (9216) dots on a square inch of my screen. Traditionally, online media is at 72 DPI. For printed media we use 300. These numbers are significant because they dictate which types of font we use. For instance, Sans Serif fonts renders much better on a screen than Serifs, specifically because of our relatively low resolution. Italics are also less readable on a screen because of that same reason. Common DPI for laser printers is 1200 DPI and a high-end production printer might have a resolution of 2400 DPI. This makes it reading serif fonts easer to read and is also the reason why you are much more likely to find a Serif font in a book than on printed media.

As computing power increases, so does the ability to render images at a much higher quality. LCD screens are also increasing in size and decreasing the size of pixels. Will we ever have computer screens with a DPI of 600? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it will have a much bigger effect than just the ability to use Serifs without worrying about readability. You see, as it stands now, texts online are rather short (compared to print). They need to be, people don’t read that much on-screen as compared to on paper (this post is probably even too long for on-screen reading). This is partly because screen readability is significantly lower than print. Granted, the fact that your screen is emitting light doesn’t help readability either but still.

If we were able to increase the DPI on screen to about the level of a simple ink jet printer, it would have a big impact on on-screen media. Suddenly, texts can be larger, we could even decrease the amount of printed media. The need for it will decrease because what we used to read on paper, we now read op our screen.

Whether printed media will ever disappear is anyone’s guess, I doubt it will anytime soon but it will certainly be interesting to see how a significant increase in DPI will impact the way we enjoy printed media.

technorati tags:dpi, readability, print

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