Answers.Body: <p>Most e-readers are optimized to display monochrome text, with each pixel of a <em>font</em> placed by the operating system and software to maximize legibility.</p>
  <p>On the other hand, a screenshot captures the pixels <em>as shown on the display</em>, which are modified to reduce aliasing and to make letters appear rounded. To do this, the letters are displayed in shade of gray, as shown below.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/uCdRi.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/uCdRi.png" alt="Screenshot" /></a></p>
  <p>If you <em>must</em> include a screenshot of text in an e-book, there are a few things that could help.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Increase contrast and reduce gamma with an image editor such as free <a href="https://www.irfanview.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IrfanView</a>.</li>
  <li>Reduce the number of colors to two, i.e., black and white.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>The image below shows both effects applied.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/HYE3H.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/HYE3H.jpg" alt="Modified Screenshot" /></a></p>
  <p>Far better, though, would be to take the screenshot and to convert the image to text using optical character recognition, OCR with a tools such as <a href="http://www.paperfile.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">FreeOCR</a>, as shown below.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/xxIJv.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/xxIJv.png" alt="FreeOCR of Screenshot" /></a></p>
  <p>With care, this will reproduce the text of the screenshot as <em>characters</em>, not as a gray-scale image.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-05-29T20:04:36.653Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2023-05-29T20:04:36.653Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: DrMoishe Pippik
Body: <p>Sending Personal Computer's Screenshot of text to e-reader makes text blurrier than before when I embed the screenshot into a word document/pdf file. Why?
  Image looks fine on a personal computer.</p>
  <p>Would a new e-book reader fix this problem? Is this an artifact of old e-book readers?</p>
  
Tags: <ebook-readers>
Title: Sending Personal Computer's Screenshot of text to e-reader makes text blurrier than before. Why?
UserDisplayName: Coo
ThreadText: # Sending Personal Computer's Screenshot of text to e-reader makes text blurrier than before. Why?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2023-05-24)
  
  Sending Personal Computer's Screenshot of text to e-reader makes text blurrier than before when I embed the screenshot into a word document/pdf file. Why?
  Image looks fine on a personal computer.
  
  Would a new e-book reader fix this problem? Is this an artifact of old e-book readers?
  
  **Tags:** ebook-readers
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2023-05-29. Score: 1
  
  Most e-readers are optimized to display monochrome text, with each pixel of a *font* placed by the operating system and software to maximize legibility.
  
  On the other hand, a screenshot captures the pixels *as shown on the display*, which are modified to reduce aliasing and to make letters appear rounded. To do this, the letters are displayed in shade of gray, as shown below.
  
  [![Screenshot](https://i.sstatic.net/uCdRi.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/uCdRi.png)
  
  If you *must* include a screenshot of text in an e-book, there are a few things that could help.
  
  * Increase contrast and reduce gamma with an image editor such as free [IrfanView](https://www.irfanview.com/).
  * Reduce the number of colors to two, i.e., black and white.
  
  The image below shows both effects applied.
  
  [![Modified Screenshot](https://i.sstatic.net/HYE3H.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/HYE3H.jpg)
  
  Far better, though, would be to take the screenshot and to convert the image to text using optical character recognition, OCR with a tools such as [FreeOCR](http://www.paperfile.net/), as shown below.
  
  [![FreeOCR of Screenshot](https://i.sstatic.net/xxIJv.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/xxIJv.png)
  
  With care, this will reproduce the text of the screenshot as *characters*, not as a gray-scale image.
  
  
  ---
  
  