There is nothing in the description of darkvision that would state otherwise. Now, reading yellow ink on white paper might be a problem, but black ink on white paper shouldn't be an issue.
That's my take, too. As long as there's enough contrast, you're good. Blood on tree bark, probably not.
It would follow that creatures with darkvision would be sure to make things legible, if they wanted them read.
I always figured they had meant greyscale, like how we call greyscale TV black and white.
With darkvision you can see with no light source, only in black & white. No problem reading.
"Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. Darkvision is black-and-white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise—invisible objects are
still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally. The presence of light does not spoil darkvision."
I always figured they had meant greyscale, like how we call greyscale TV black and white.
I assumed greyscale too, but two colors can look very different in the light, but be the same shade of grey. Also, really light grey on white is hard to read.
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I supose is a DM call. I remenber a novel of salvatore, A drow wizard have to use a candle to read normal ink. A special ink that can be readed with darkvision was expensive. I would rule that way, but is a matter of taste.
A lot of (most of?) his books were written before 3rd edition, when drow still had infravision. That relied on heat, and would make reading impossible.
Depends on how the night vision goggles work. If they send out some sort of illumination (usually in the infrared spectrum), then you can read just fine. If they are thermal or laser range imaging, then no, you probably can't. Not sure which one of these darkvision is (or if it's a fourth thing altogether). I just assume in my games that you can see as if there was normal illumination, just drained of all color. Makes things easier.
I'm pretty sure they're just magic.
Actually, since darkvision is usually an Ex ability (not Sp or Su), it's explicitly not magic. Well, unless you consider the existence of dwarves to be magic in and of itself.
Infravision and ultravision (seeing into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums) always made more sense to me than Darkvision does, but darkvision is simpler to adjudicate. Why it works isn't an issue. It just sort of does.
The spell darkvision changes your eyes to be able to see like darkvision. Put the goggles over your eyes, and they change your eyes to see in the dark :D