Re. Legibility of colored text online

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

 Mary Fitzgibbons asked for recommendations for foreground
 and background colors that produce legible text in her mail
 reader.

 Mary, I stick with tried and true black text on white
 background. The sharpness of the letters is the best you
 can get on a color monitor since there are no electron
 beams to align to form the letters; in contrast, colored
 letters are formed by aligning three electron beams (red,
 green and blue; RGB if you prefer), which leads to fuzzy
 edges sometimes. The contrast between foreground is also
 usually higher than with any other colors, since white
 forms from the maximum amount of all three colors (RGB) and
 black from the minimum.

 Some folks like reversing this to put white text on a black
 background; I can't stand this personally, and find it like
 reading reversed text in a magazine: too much noise, not
 enough signal. YMMV! If you really like your black
 background, why not try that amber/tangerine orange color
 that they used to use with mainframe terminals? A colleague
 once told me that the orange had been chosen for its
 restful effect on the eyes; personally, I suspect that they
 just chose that color because the phosphors were cheap.

 If you don't need the color, consider not using it. I
 prefer writing on a full-page greyscale screen (from
 Radius) at home, and the only time I regret my purchase is
 when it comes time to play kiddie games with my young'uns.
 At work, of course, Windows is so much more attractive when
 I play Minesweeper (TM?) in full color. <grin>

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.