Hi NewOldWriter
Here's my thoughts on this subject. If you look at today's copy and print paper, it's given a brightness number. It's not unusual to find paper rated as 96, 98 or even 100 brightness. Back in the 1970's, paper that was listed as being bright white is less white than a 90 bright by today's standards paper. Going back even further, like to the 1950's or earlier, it was probably difficult to get decently white paper, so it may have been preferable to type on colored paper like yellow as opposed to off-white paper.
Adding to Rob's answer, although I was never officially diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome, I was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. I've always found the starkness of black print on bright white paper stressful on my eyes and reading often gave me a headache. My typing papers of choice are the ivory, cream or ecru colored papers. Staples item # 490950 is pastel cream paper that makes for good typing although it is a little on the heavy side for airmail letters. Step Forward wheat straw paper is a soft 92 bright paper that accepts both type and fountain pen ink reasonably well with minimal wicking or bleeding.
Other forum members may have different ideas, but that's what I love about this forum, there are so many different people with different ideas, it's always fun to read their thoughts and expand your own envelope of thinking. All the best,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
