How LiveInk Works
The LiveInk text engineering method aims to more fully exploit the rich capacity of
the visual system for complex representation, while ameliorating the self-defeating
attributes of text formatting conventions that were developed when text recording
media were limited by the cost of paper.
The great reading opportunity of electronic text is that the text content, now in
digital form, can be read by a machine. LiveInk takes advantage of this
machine-readability to analyze the text content for:
- Syntax
- Other Grammatical Attributes
- Punctuation
- Word Difficulty
- Pronunciation
LiveInk then takes the results of this analysis to give shape to the
presentation of the text. Since language (and the conceptual structure it
represents) is multi-layered and multi-dimensional, then it stands to reason
that text - the spatial system that represents spoken language - should also
be multi-layered and multi-dimensional. So LiveInk transforms the text by:
- Limiting the length of the lines to two or three eye spans, and varying
the contours of the sides of paragraphs with varying indentations, thus reducing the
competition for visual attention associated with conventional block text.
- Breaking the lines at the most important syntactic boundaries, alleviating
the visual processing problems associated with the random "carriage returns"
of block text.
- Varying the spacial position of the lines to denote syntactic interrelationships
within the text segments, and to visually differentiate the part of speech of
words and word groups.
Thus LiveInk creates patterns which make the text easier to read and comprehend. These
patterns exploit both spatial relationships and language to represent the conceptual
structure of the text, enabling the eye and the mind to work together to build meaning in
the mind of the reader.
In other words, LiveInk transforms this:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new
nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.
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Into this:
   Four score         
        
       
          and seven years ago,
         
        our fathers
       
         
         
           
brought forth
         
         
                
  on this continent
        
               
      a new nation,
        
       conceived
in liberty and
         
           
dedicated to the proposition
            that all men
    
       
         
             
are created
equal.
        
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