At the beginning of the year, we announced the Paged Media initiative as a community driven open source solution to help anyone who wants to print content with web technologies. Before looking at what we’ve been up to for the last five months, in upcoming articles, let’s have a look at what’s possible the gaps we’re trying to fill.

In CSS specifications, the float property is very interesting. The property indicates that an element is to be removed from the normal flow and instead be placed into a different place – currently, on the right or left side of its container. Text and other inline elements will then surround the floated element.

The visual impact of text — whether it is carved in stone, printed on paper, displayed on screen, or comprises an ebook – can be influenced by a number of factors. Color is one of those. Sometimes, those colors are made from light, sometimes, from the craftsmanship of a painter.

Books are sacred. Think of how we react to book burnings. Think how hard it is to throw a book away. We build temples for them – there’s a library in almost every town. Many of us have more books in our houses than any other object, besides Lego. They might be the most spectacularly successful technology of all time.

A book’s contents might be great art. The book itself might be great art, too. A book may take years or decades to create—perhaps the work of dozens or hundreds of people beyond the author. It can be a monument you can hold in your hand.