[bob1029]

> HTML is better than PDF

I disagree. PDF is the most desirable format for printed media and its analogues. Any time I plan to seriously entertain a paper from Arxiv, I print it out first. I prefer to have the author's original intent in hand. Arbitrary page breaks and layout shifts that are a result of my specific hardware/software configuration are not desirable to me in this context of use.

[ACCount37]

I agree that PDF is best for things that are meant to be printed, no questions. But I wonder how common actually printing those papers is?

In research and in embedded hardware both, I've met some people who had entire stacks of papers printed out - research papers or datasheets or application notes - but also people who had 3 monitors and 64GB of RAM and all the papers open as browser tabs.

I'm far closer to the latter myself. Is this a "generational split" thing?

[pfortuny]

Possibly, but then again, when I need to study a paper, I print it, when I need just to skim it and use a result from it, it is more likely that I just read it on a screen (tablet/monitor). That is the difference for me.

[s0rce]

I used to print papers, probably stopped about 10 years ago. I now read everything in Zotero where I can highlight and save my annotations and sync my library between devices. You can also seamlessly archive html and pdfs. I don't see people printing papers in my workplace that often unless you need to read them in a wet lab where the computer is not convenient.