On 1/13/2016 8:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 01/13/2016 04:29 PM, Don Y wrote:
What value was there to having alphanumeric entry on the device?
Is this mainly for searching for titles, passages, etc.?

Yes, but I seldom use it.

How do you find a specific title? Or, are there only a small number of
titles on the device at any given time (e.g., dozens instead of thousands)?

You can make notes also but I seldom do that ever
with paper books. The Paperwhite has a virtual keyboard.

I can't see SWMBO using that sort of feature. She's reading for
entertainment, not "research". The books that she "studies" are
all dead tree implementations so she can put post-it notes in
the pages, etc.

I use PDF's for my archive because I can put lots of stuff in
that container alongside the "document": illustrations, sounds,
animations, source/object code, etc.

And, I can augment documents -- include notes about errors I've found
or clarifications of the existing material, etc. (having a pen interface
lets me include sketches in those notes!)

One thing the PW
doesn't have afaik is the text to speech or audio books but I never used that
feature anyway.

Yeah, I don't deal well with audio books. I don't "digest" material as
well when it is read to me. And, I think random access is more tedious;
if I want to skip back a paragraph (or whatever) to doublecheck how
something mentioned there fits with something I'm reading *here*, it's
easier to just glance up and hunt for the information visually.

I think the same sort of thing applies to dead tree documents; you have
a visual memory of where it was on the page, verso/recto, etc. and can
flip through hunting for it based on those remembered criteria.