Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls How do you read fanfic?

I read on my PC but print out my faves.

These days I read on the computer or my Palm. I only print out stories very rarely -- mostly because I don't tend to read longer fics anymore, except sometimes part by part as they're posted.

Back when I was gobbling down longer ones by the handful, I did print them out. Every Friday, so I could read them over Shabbos (Saturday, my Sabbath). No computers or PDAs then for me.

The accumulation finally got tossed in my most recent move (although it moved the time before that).

I read everything online. I read way to fast for printing to be reasonable.

However, I have been known to print one if I am really into it and have to go somewhere or I am at work and need to hide the fact that I am reading it.

I pretty much always read in front of the PC.
I'm usually reading something angsty, sitting here with my box of tissues, not daring to take the stories out where someone could see me crying like a baby over them!

Awww, Jessi, how sweet

When I started with fanfiction, I printed out everything. I was pretty lucky that the first stories I read were invariably great. Cause printing out 150 pages and finding out after 5 pages that this isn't my cup of tea, would've been pretty naff.

Anyway, when I learnt, I could also use my PDA for these things, I switched to it - some days ago I had to buy a new SD card

I don't really like reading fanfiction on my PC cause I need a calm and comfortable area to indulge in the stories completely.

So, the only time when I do so, is when I'm at work and need some distraction

Bye,
Jana

I didn't discover fanfic until after the pay-by-the-minute days were already gone, which is perhaps why I've never printed out a fic in my life. I've never even printed out one of my own. I read, write, and edit exclusively on the computer.

I didn't know it was possible to read on my Palm, however, so if I actually figure it out, my vote may change

Caroline

Reading on the Palm is pretty easy, Caroline, if you've got a reader program. I use Documents to Go, which can read any Microsoft Word or Excel-compatible file. Once you've got the Palm software, and the reader software installed on your computer, you just open the reader software, tell it where your files are saved on your hard drive, close the file, and sync the Palm.

Documents-to-Go is a good program for things I want to edit. But I prefer PalmReader for fic and other long documents.

Oh, thank you both! I'll look into these

Caroline

I think I may have printed it once or twice, but I usually read it on my pc..

First I download from this site and cut and paste everything into Word. Read and save to my FanFic Drive (Partition) on my hard drive. Of course I've orginized it further by having a folder for LnC PG and LnC Nfic. Then in those I have folders A-Z but eventually added numbered folders (001-050 etc) for multi-part series. On those I'm up to 181, that is numbering 181a, 181b etc for series.

When they hit the archive I replace my word files with the text file because they are so much smaller. Then once a week or every other week I burn a back-up CD for the drive. Then if I'm going away I burn a CD right before I leave so I'll have an updated CD for using in my old laptop.

I use my desktop PC or laptop because in my LnC folder I have over 3000 stories with 25 waiting for you guys to finish writing them. In the Nfic folder I have over 520 stories with 7 waiting to be finished. If I printed out all those on paper to read (which I've read all of them) I would have spent a lot of money for paper and toner. Plus I would have to have a room dedicated for storage.

So show how anal I really am I also have both a PG and Nfic spreadsheets in Excel where I put a brief discription of my favorite stories and the number of each series story.

So I guess you could say I'm crazy.

Whoow kmar, you sure have things organised on your pc

I wish I was as organised as you are (my house is a mess, my pc is a mess, everything is a huge mess if I have been there )