The article is at:
http://gizmodo.com/5522341/embracing-the-digital-book

From its introduction:
The problem is much simpler: iBooks and Kindle.app are incompetent e-readers. They get in the way of the reading experience and treat digital books like poorly typeset PDFs.

We can do better. (We have to do better.)

But there's something beyond interface and design issues nagging at me: these applications are ignoring a core characteristic unique to digital text. They're ignoring the meta-data created as we move through and mark our e-books.

This essay considers two sets of questions:
1) What's wrong with our current e-readers and how do we rebuild them?
2) What meta-data do we create when engaging digital text, how can our e-readers embrace it and how does that change our relationship with books?

And in summary:
Instead, let's focus on the fundamentals. Improve e-reader typography and page balance. Integrate well considered networked (social) features. Respect the rights of the reader and then - only then - will we be in a position to further explore our new canvas.

This guy is super demanding... Just read off a PC if he really thinks an e-reader needs to do all that.

And "today's e-readers" apparently consist of iBooks and Kindle for iPad? :smack:

Very interesting. He had good points with regards to typography.

which are addressed with several- want to say many but it doesnt sound right- current ebook readers. These guys all think kindle and nook and ibooks are the only game in town. want to fix ereaders? Start reviewing the ones out here that get it right already.

Typography takes it right in the groin with current e-readers ... just as it did when "desktop publishing" demolished generations of work of type artisans. But as technology improved, so did typography return as a craft and art. The same thing will happen with e-readers. I, for one, am willing to be patient. Right now, the word is the content I am interested in, not the form it is presented in. Function is the watchword for the time being.

When I read a book, I want to curl up and lose myself in the book. I don't want to carry on some sort of ersatz communication with 10,000 random strangers. Nor do I want to be influenced by what 10,000 weenies think is the "important" part of the book -- I'm smart enough to figure that out for myself. I don't want to watch embedded video, I don't want to be distracted by surfing off to read further information, I don't want audio commentary on it, I don't want author interviews. I don't want any of that. I just want to Read. My. Book.

My Sony PRS-505 does that very well. It puts text on the screen. In fact, that's true of just about every other reader out there. The way the text is put on the screen can be improved, and so can the amount of screen available to put text on, but that's a matter of making a better ebook reader, not a device to facilitate access to some lame parody of a social networking website with some book as its supposed theme.

Has this generation gotten so far away from the core concept of reading (or, for that matter, of doing anything as an individual instead part of a swarm?) that they can't even just sit down and read a book?

Start reviewing the ones out here that get it
right already.

Helooooo! Gizmodo.

Seriously, you can't fix them, stop trying ><

which are addressed with several- want to say many but it doesnt sound right- current ebook readers. These guys all think kindle and nook and ibooks are the only game in town. want to fix ereaders? Start reviewing the ones out here that get it right already.

Unfortunately none of them do. The only reader to offer hyphenation (FBReader) also fails to follow important parts of the spec. There certainly is a hole in the market waiting to be filled, and Apple's lamentable iBooks has only made that even more obvious.

While I'm not that interested in seeing what passages were read by Joe Bloggs of Bugtussle, there is an argument to be made for providing an outward-facing data-structure to expose markup that the user has made in a book, though this is as much a standards issue as anything else. We're starting to see truly useful management and collaboration systems emerge for PDFs (see Mendeley (http://www.mendeley.com/) for instance) as a result of the more advanced state of the PDF spec.

When I read a book, I want to curl up and lose myself in the book. I don't want to carry on some sort of ersatz communication with 10,000 random strangers. Nor do I want to be influenced by what 10,000 weenies think is the "important" part of the book -- I'm smart enough to figure that out for myself. I don't want to watch embedded video, I don't want to be distracted by surfing off to read further information, I don't want audio commentary on it, I don't want author interviews. I don't want any of that. I just want to Read. My. Book.
...
Has this generation gotten so far away from the core concept of reading (or, for that matter, of doing anything as an individual instead part of a swarm?) that they can't even just sit down and read a book?


Amen to this. I like the idea of a dedicated e reader. I have other electronic equipment if I wanted to be assaulted by other annoying, unwanted stuff. Think it's more that this generation that has gotten away from recreational reading. There are lots of people around that resent that there are readers out there who just want to read and are trying to stop it.

He's one of those typography is everything idiots.

He should stick with paper.

... [snipped a most excellent and concise paragraph from post #6 above to save space] ... I just want to Read. My. Book.

Exactly, Worldwalker ... exactly! :bookworm:

Marilyn

I think a couple of comments earlier nailed the fundamental disconnect between reading and the Web.

When you read a book, you want an immersive and by its very nature solitary experience.

I don't want the equivalent of Facebook chatter and Farmville spam being battered away at me while I am reading a book...I don't want a Twit feed while reading.

There are two modes of using the web: community (interactive) and grazing (consuming) -- a lot of web-oriented folks assume that making something more of an "interactive community" experience automatically makes it better (because it improves stickiness to the community and in turn gives the owner of that community more opportunities to sell you things).

With books, interactiveness actually harms the product.

Multimedia stories with integrated interactivity could well turn out to be the amazingly cool medium of the 21st century...but they are not books.

Book communities, where people can chat about ideas, etc. are a great addition to the book experience for those who want them...but I feel the push to integrate them directly into the reading experience is really making it needlessly far. The same benefit can be accomplished with simple message boards, etc. that can be accessed by an ordinary web browser.

Multimedia stories with integrated interactivity could well turn out to be the amazingly cool medium of the 21st century...but they are not books.
Indeed, they're videogames. Usually MMORPG's.

Yeah, I've already seen the trolls above dissing typography. I don't care.

I do own an ebook reader (Hanlin V5), as well as reading on a PC (FBReader and Calibre), and I'm hugely disappointed in the quality of their typesetting. I know, it's considered a quirk now, but I do care about how the text looks.

This is extremely annoying to me, as 1982-era computers (when one MIPS was "wow") could already run the TeX formatting algorithms--and these produce vastly better results than the crappy text we see now.

He's one of those typography is everything idiots.

He should stick with paper.

Yep.

I wouldn't call them idiots though, as I can respect people with different opinions.

But personally, I couldn't give a crap less about typography. As long as it's a standard font, and there aren't major formatting errors (lack of paragraphs etc.) I couldn't care less what font it is, whether it's justified or right aligned etc. etc. etc.

Text is text to me for the most part.

Well, when they care more about how it looks than what it says, that's pretty idiotic to me.

But personally, I couldn't give a crap less about typography. As long as it's a standard font, and there aren't major formatting errors (lack of paragraphs etc.) I couldn't care less what font it is, whether it's justified or right aligned etc. etc. etc.


Maybe for you, but for a lot of us it does matter. To me it makes a world of difference. And I think the article nailed it.

The typography limitations are one of the most sensitive issues which impedes eBook readers to become a handy tool for research alongside with hardship for quoting and difficult or impossible text marking. Pulp fiction are no more than mere blocks of text, but when you come to texts that need to be analysed in depth, processing them typographically is a must, for the sake of mere readability.

Yeah, I've already seen the trolls above dissing typography. I don't care.The aim of good typography is to disappear, and most people fail to understand why a piece of text that's set properly is easier to read than one that's not, so they continue to stew in their own delusions.

I'm willing to bet they aren't going to send in a C.V. printed in monospaced courier* though. :rofl:

*the font that dominated business communication for decades and is about as 'standard' as you can get. It was ditched for a reason.

The aim of good typography is to disappear, and most people fail to understand why a piece of text that's set properly is easier to read than one that's not, so they continue to stew in their own delusions.


Exactly. That is why good silent typography is so important when you are of the opinion that only the text matter. You should not be distracted and you should read it as fast as possible and not have to slow down (unconsciously) because of bad typography.

With books, interactiveness actually harms the product.


How is it any different than an online version of a book club? I'd love to be able to share a book with my brother and both of us make comments on it as we're reading. We do that now with paper books and post-it notes, but neither of us read many pbooks anymore.

Has this generation gotten so far away from the core concept of reading (or, for that matter, of doing anything as an individual instead part of a swarm?) that they can't even just sit down and read a book?

"This generation" (man you guys all sound ancient) does plenty of recreational reading, it's just not always in the format that you old fogies see as 'reading'. Most of it is done online; things like blogs and, yes, social networking sites. I don't think that devalues the reading simply because it's not what I do for recreational reading.

I don't really care about extras on dvds; my husband does. It's another way for the movie industry to drive sales, and this is just the publishing industry version of that. I don't want the extras, but I don't see why others can't enjoy them.

When I read on a small PDA screen I didn't care all that much about typography but with the larger screens it would be nice to have good typography again. But, I'd rather have a well edited ebook not chock full of typos.

Exactly. That is why good silent typography is so important when you are of the opinion that only the text matter. You should not be distracted and you should read it as fast as possible and not have to slow down (unconsciously) because of bad typography.

This is soooo true. I am reading large amounts of scientific text and typography does matter! A lot! Especially if the content is very important.
And then there is the factor of pleasure. I like the reading experience to be a nice one. What's wrong with that.

Nothing in general

but

keep in mind that typography sets the form of a text while the strengh of eBook (reading device)s is the flexibility.

On LCD screens fonts without serifs are much more readable than those with. One eInk screens it's a totally different reading experience. So who's to choose which font the THE right one? For which device?

Optimal page layout? It isn't a given with reflowable text. Some prefer to read in upright mode, others in landscape. The page layout changes completely. Any way to determine THE best layout? Nope.

Font size? Some fonts look good at 10, 11 or 12 pt. Now, what about readers with visual impairments who need to switch to 15, 16, or even 20 pt? Still sure that the chosen font in the chosen size is THE best solution?

So, for typography to be a valid issue for eBooks, typography itself has to evolve and to adapt to a new technology and reading experience.

But still, some things should/could be added to enhance the readability of an digital text with some due respect to typography.

1.) Hyphenation, and a good one. This will solve lots of problems.
2.) Addition of own fonts. No need to force readers to use just the built-in.
3.) A lot of different font sizes. Let the reader decide which size does suit him/her best.

How is it any different than an online version of a book club? I'd love to be able to share a book with my brother and both of us make comments on it as we're reading. We do that now with paper books and post-it notes, but neither of us read many pbooks anymore.

I find the whole idea pretty distracting, like delving between the text and an endless series of footnotes that may or may not be relevant. The point of a book IMO is to create an ongoing narrative, one idea building upon the other -- constantly changing narrative stream through comments, etc. is pretty distracting IMO -- I'm not saying it shouldn't be available for people who really want it, but it seems pretty remote from the fundamental concept of reading a book.

It'd be like going to a watch a movie and alternating between reviews and web comments and the movie itself, resulting in a disjointed experience.

I would much rather experience the secondary content (reviews, etc.) either before reading the medium (so I know what to "look" for) or after the fact ("Oh, so that's what he meant.")

Old fogey that I am, I don't see "books as an interactive medium" as an improvement of the medium. My mind just doesn't work that way.

Quick follow up -- yes, blogging, message boards, etc. are reading but very interactive, they are ongoing conversations and I love them for that. I just see "reading a book" as a very different experience -- online works tend to be much shorter, often addressing a subject in far less detail (non-fiction) or just shorter in general (the dominance of short and flash fiction over novels online) and much of the value comes from other peoples' insight.

How is it any different than an online version of a book club? I'd love to be able to share a book with my brother and both of us make comments on it as we're reading. We do that now with paper books and post-it notes, but neither of us read many pbooks anymore.


the difference in a book and book club is sort of like Mark Twain said about the difference in Lightning and Lightning Bug.

:blink:

Reading a book should be an experience between the reader and the author.

"This generation" (man you guys all sound ancient) does plenty of recreational reading, it's just not always in the format that you old fogies see as 'reading'. Most of it is done online; things like blogs and, yes, social networking sites. I don't think that devalues the reading simply because it's not what I do for recreational reading.

...

How do you read a novel on a blog or are you saying you don't read novels and that your recreational reading IS reading blogs?

Maybe there's a language barrier and this ol' ancient guy is not understanding you young whipper-snappers.

The aim of good typography is to disappear, and most people fail to understand why a piece of text that's set properly is easier to read than one that's not, so they continue to stew in their own delusions.


I think we all understand that. Some of us aren't anal about it.

As long as it's a standard font (and not some weird one) and the paragraph breaks etc. are in the right places, I'm good to go.

I've never read anything on the Kindle where I was bothered by the layout, font etc. For novels--text is text. As long as it's a normal font and the paragraph breaks etc. are in the proper places. So on that front, current e-readers are fine for me as long as the book in question is edited properly.

Scholarly PDFs are another stories, but those will suck until we start getting color screen tablets with 8.5x11" or larger screens.

Another thing that the typography freaks need to remember is that sometime the kindle is not at fault, it is sometimes the publishers' fault. Don't blame everything on the device, sometimes it is a matter of just using it right.

I get what the typography enthusiasts are saying. I see how it CAN be important. I merely object to the notion that there's no value to today's ereaders UNTIL the typography issues are handled. I've enjoyed many many ebooks and the state of typography on them hasn't even been a factor.

I'm sure iBooks 2.0, Kindle for iPad 2.0 (or 3.0 or 4.0) will get around to improving the typography. In the mean time, I'll be enjoying reading with what we already have.

Lee

He's one of those typography is everything idiots.

He should stick with paper.
Why not bring the strenghts and quality of paper to e-ink as well? E-ink and e-reader devices affords me more than paper overrall, but why settle in the long run for less typographical quality than paper? I expect things to improve in the long run. It is "okay" as it is now, but I'm certainly aware that things could be better. Why settle for less? When it's put to the test, I'm afraid I'm one of those typography idiots ;) Kenny, I can't understand why you can't at least see the point... (not with your background).

Another thing that the typography freaks need to remember is that sometime the kindle is not at fault, it is sometimes the publishers' fault. Don't blame everything on the device, sometimes it is a matter of just using it right.
Certinaly it's not all the fault of the device - I'm sorry if that was your impression. It's partly the way the book has been made, and partly the way the book file is 'interpreted' by the firmware of the e-book e-reader in question. I'd say the weight of this issue is on the publisher rather than the device.

I get what the typography enthusiasts are saying. I see how it CAN be important. I merely object to the notion that there's no value to today's ereaders UNTIL the typography issues are handled. I've enjoyed many many ebooks and the state of typography on them hasn't even been a factor.

I'm sure iBooks 2.0, Kindle for iPad 2.0 (or 3.0 or 4.0) will get around to improving the typography. In the mean time, I'll be enjoying reading with what we already have.


I agree with you - and I think by far most would agree, too. Just beacuse you could be termed "typography enthusiast" doesn't mean you can't live with it as it is right now on curent devices. I certanly can - but I hope for something better. It can be done on paper, why not on a computer? One thing is to like or accept current state of affairs, another is to work towards a better place.

I don't think you should dismiss "typography enthusiasts" wholesale - or at all - most, by far, would agree at least mostly with you, I think.

I certainly enjoy reading e-books in many forms - and prefer it. But it doesn't stop me from wanting them to improve when I know the can be so.

Now, I don't have en e-reader (yet - I hope to change that), and I'm far from an expert on this, but isn't typography more than just type or font design, but also making sure a piece of text is readable, whether on paper or a screen? And isn't hyphenation, punctuation etc a part of typography? I can't imagine why someone would want to dismiss typography. As I understand it, it's goal is to create readable text without being too obvious about it. Kind of like special effects in movies - when they're good, you can't tell they're there, they're seamlessly integrated into a movie. When they're bad, they're obvious and not pleasant to watch.

Why not bring the strenghts and quality of paper to e-ink as well? E-ink and e-reader devices affords me more than paper overrall, but why settle in the long run for less typographical quality than paper? I expect things to improve in the long run. It is "okay" as it is now, but I'm certainly aware that things could be better. Why settle for less? When it's put to the test, I'm afraid I'm one of those typography idiots ;) Kenny, I can't understand why you can't at least see the point... (not with your background).


.....

I see very little advantage and in fact numerous drawbacks of forcing ebooks into the paper book mold. As long as there is at least minimal formatting and flexibility, that's all I want. The more you force ebooks into the constraints of traditional printing the more you sacrifice flexibility. Surely with your background, you know that. :)

I see very little advantage and in fact numerous drawbacks of forcing ebooks into the paper book mold. As long as there is at least minimal formatting and flexibility, that's all I want. The more you force ebooks into the constraints of traditional printing the more you sacrifice flexibility. Surely with your background, you know that. :)

I'm not taking about forcing e-books into a p-book mold, only talking about taking what's good from paper and using that in e-books, too. Flexibility should be able to stretch to such basic things as no "rivers" and proper hyphenation and adjustment - as an example. With my background I'm sure it would be possible to adjust so. At the moment I live with it as it is, but I do expect no less from e-books in time than I get from p-books. Why should I conform to less? That is ludicrous.

I'm not taking about forcing e-books into a p-book mold, only talking about taking what's good from paper and using that in e-books, too. Flexibility should be able to stretch to such basic things as no "rivers" and proper hyphenation and adjustment - as an example. With my background I'm sure it would be possible to adjust so. At the moment I live with it as it is, but I do expect no less from e-books in time than I get from p-books. Why should I conform to less? That is ludicrous.

For flexibility. Look at how well Adobe PDFs work on ebook readers for example. :thumbsup:

For flexibility. Look at how well Adobe PDFs work on ebook readers for example. :thumbsup:
But that's just it. It doesn't work any better than any other format. In my experience. (I'ts not great).

Edit: Besides; conforming to a lesser standard is still not acceptable - unless it provides *much* greater affordance (which it doesn't)

For flexibility. Look at how well Adobe PDFs work on ebook readers for example. :thumbsup:
On re-reading this I get you're ironic... Unfortunately, I still don't get the point :o

1.) Hyphenation, and a good one. This will solve lots of problems.
2.) Addition of own fonts. No need to force readers to use just the built-in.
3.) A lot of different font sizes. Let the reader decide which size does suit him/her best.

Agree 100%. The biggest problem with ebook typography is that it doesn't automatically perform Hyphenation. Ligatures and other typographic enhancements would be nice, but to work you really need 300DPI or better screens.

Typography and good hyphenation make text so much more pleasant to read. Just compare a good TeX doc to something from Word.

For now, I'll settle for a good H&J, as this is possible with minimal processing power (at least for English).

For you. Don't assume I want hyphenation, I absolutely detest it...

With typography, as with most things in life, there is a threshold. Below that threshold text becomes difficult to read for most people. Above that threshold, only typography nuts complain about the lack of typography. IMO e-books are well above that threshold.

They correctly handle typefaces, punctuation, paragraphs, text styles.

They fail on: hyphenation, widows and orphans

Of the fail list only hyphenation is something that a non typography nut would notice.

If you have medium to larger-sized text on any 5-6" device, good hyphenation is definitely an imrovement.

With typography, as with most things in life, there is a threshold. Below that threshold text becomes difficult to read for most people. Above that threshold, only typography nuts complain about the lack of typography. IMO e-books are well above that threshold.

They correctly handle typefaces, punctuation, paragraphs, text styles.

They fail on: hyphenation, widows and orphans

Of the fail list only hyphenation is something that a non typography nut would notice.

And they fail on rivers and everybody notice that.

But the point is that a text is still harder to read even if an untrained person does not notice any problems. So there is still a need to enhance the text to make it more readable.

On re-reading this I get you're ironic... Unfortunately, I still don't get the point :o


My point is that PDF is intended to be "just like a book" with all the typography controls, fonts, etc. etc. but the problem is that it is not flexible. In order to get all that typography control in it becomes constrained to a particular page size and does not work well on smaller screens (or larger/different screens sometimes).

And they fail on rivers and everybody notice that.

But the point is that a text is still harder to read even if an untrained person does not notice any problems. So there is still a need to enhance the text to make it more readable.

Rivers are a function of hyphenation. It's diminishing returns, beyond a point text is easy enough to read that further effort is pointless.

They correctly handle typefaces, punctuation, paragraphs, text styles.

They fail on: hyphenation, widows and orphans

Some of them fail on important aspects of typefaces, especially in the matter of bold/italics. And I'd put low resolution leading to blurry-ish letters in the typefaces category as well, but that's a hardware issue we all know will get better in time. Not supporting proper bold & italics, and lack of font & character support, are software issues that could be fixed already.

Their orphan problems includes orphaning punctuation marks--my PRS-505 will put quotation marks in a separate line, rather than keeping them with the text they follow, when it reads RTF files.

Current ebook readers are all plenty good enough for reading *lots* of text. What they're not good enough for, is convincing most readers that an ebook is just as "real," just as much a work of craft & art, as a pbook. (Opinions of Mobileread regulars don't count. We're fanatics.) For that, they need hyphenation, justification and better font support. (And, of course, a publishing industry that pays attention to how those work in reflowable formats.)

Rivers are a function of hyphenation. It's diminishing returns, beyond a point text is easy enough to read that further effort is pointless.

I have seen rivers in documents produced with a tool that have hyphenation. like for example Word.

I do not agree. If a paper book is faster to read for me then I will nearly always prefer a paper book.

I know we are already four pages in with this thread ... but relatively little has been said that has much to do directly with Craig Mod's musings about "fixing today's e-readers" over at Gizmodo as referenced in the OP.

For one thing, his entire article is in reference to the iBooks vs Kindle apps that run on an iPad. He doesn't once consider Kindle hardware vs Sony or any other e-ink experience -- he's simply bugged by the limitations of the apps on an iPad.

We're all agreed, to some extent, that typography matters; for some of us, it matters more than for others. Typography, as an art, is plainly absent from non-pdf documents on e-ink devices. Poetry, for example, is pretty much impossible on a Kindle.

There are some basic rules of typography -- like the innate pleasure delivered by the Golden Ratio -- that make reading easier. These things include the right balance of text size to leading to line length; they encompass x-heights on fonts and the merits of serif and sans serif depending on the message intended to be delivered. On ordinary settings, the Kindle 2 accomplishes the bare minimum of this successfully -- which is why some of us say the e-reader "disappears" in our hands. It's also why some other devices -- like the Astak -- appear to render text "crudely" in comparison.

It's my belief that the basic art of typography -- kerning, anyone? -- will improve over time on the standard e-reader in the same way that desk-top publishing came of age after a decade of visual hell and tools like Quark helped raise the entire industry's standards. A lot of Craig Mod's article on these grounds can be dismissed out of hand -- basic typography is already "good enough" for the page to disappear on a properly formatted e-ink document. You can find lots of such examples contributed by our own members here at MobileRead.

The second part of his article is about doing something "more" with the residual meta-data (ie not the author's work but your own reading experience). He goes on to suggest that the highlights of 10,000 readers should be linked together to produce "hot spots" of not-to-be-missed passages; or that we ought to be able to see the highlights of one famous author's private notes reading a second famous author. He, apparently, cares what Salman Rushdie scribbles in the margins whilst reading Joyce Carol Oates; I'm not convinced many of us are, however. And it certainly does NOT improve/fix the broken e-reader.

At the end of the day, what I like about an e-reader is that it brings to my favourite reading place -- that is, curled up in bed -- the author's imagination as created in written words. It's not about hearing the words (which is an entirely different way to consume them); it's not about interactively being clever while consuming them. It's just about reading. Other devices, and other times, are appropriate for social aspects of reading and in those -- outside of the reading itself -- the iPad may add value. But as it stands today, the Kindle 2 is not broken at all; it's a work in progress and already has caught the imagination of millions of regular readers.

And bravo! to that accomplishment!

If typography is the very important for you, get a device 8" or larger and read PDF files in their original layout. An 8" screen is exactly the size of a paperback, and the PDF books I have really look great. As good as any pbook. But newer Epub renditions have also greatly improved -- as I can see when I compare the same book on both devices I have.

I do not agree. If a paper book is faster to read for me then I will nearly always prefer a paper book.

It wont be. Try it and see. The less efficient page turns alone will compensate for any advantage that typography could possibly confer.

The reason I would never buy a Kindle, is that there are these scary social features.
I'm aware of that most people give a shit if some company (that only aim is it to maximize their profit) knows what kind of book they are reading and how.
Privacy seems to be a concept of the 20th century since people are not well educated enough to realize what they are doing and can't see the consequences.
I'm very happy with my Pocketbook 360. It has good typesetting and is very customizable and finally I have my privacy.

For just straight linear reading, like novels in paperback bookstores, my 505 is fine for me. The advantages of the 505 over paperback for me is adjusting font size so I can read it. Can't do that in paper.

Now if I read poetry, or tech stuff, or art type stuff , 505 sucks for me, I read on 42 inch computer screen. So I would think I need a 12 inch tablet that can capture the same experience as I get on computer screen.

If the IPAD was 12 inchs and could capture the reading of TEXT books in same way as pdf on computer with pinch zoom, it would take these ereaders to next level. The 9 inch version is too small for pdf experience for me on IPAD.

My point is that PDF is intended to be "just like a book" with all the typography controls, fonts, etc. etc. but the problem is that it is not flexible. In order to get all that typography control in it becomes constrained to a particular page size and does not work well on smaller screens (or larger/different screens sometimes).
What I'm hpoing for is better typography control in a re-flowable format. As it is, it's 'okay' - doesn't mean we can't wish for, and strive for, better. Perhaps a computer will never be able to completely emulate 'the human touch', but making it better than it is now, should be possible.

The problem is, achieving anything better than we have now would be expensive in terms of:

- human effort up-front --- requires better mark-up, esp. coding discretionary hyphens for words which are hyphenated different depending on which form of speech they are (present (to give) vice present (a gift))

- processor effort on the machine, increased requirements of testing for Q&A --- while a multi-gigahertz machine can typeset a TeX document all but instantly, back in the day of 28MHz 68040s my NeXT Cube could take _minutes_ to typeset a complex document --- a more complex algorithm will be more likely to have odd effects in edge cases

- there aren't any good h&j algorithms which will eliminate stacks (multiple instances of a word appearing at the beginning or end of a line) --- every effort to code one which I've seen has been unable to avoid getting stuck in an endless loop

Devices w/ larger screens are available --- the problem is they're _expensive_ (and are starting to go away --- Fujitsu seems to've discontinued their Stylistic ST-6012 slate computer)

William

The main problem with eBook on current readers is the lack of hyphenation. Without, you can easily get rather large spaces between words where you might not had there been hyphenation. So really, add hyphenation to the readers and things will be better with full justification.

I don't think you should dismiss "typography enthusiasts" wholesale - or at all - most, by far, would agree at least mostly with you, I think.

Well, I did use "enthusiast" instead of "nut" or "nazi" :)

I do hope the state of the art continues to improve. I just know that I already read quite well with what we have on the iPhone and iPad.

Lee

My point is that PDF is intended to be "just like a book" with all the typography controls, fonts, etc. etc. but the problem is that it is not flexible. In order to get all that typography control in it becomes constrained to a particular page size and does not work well on smaller screens (or larger/different screens sometimes).

Exactly. I doubt we'll ever achieve the nirvanna of automatically resizing page, font size, etc. -- in such a way as to get the results of a human optimizing type for a particular "page size".

I like being able to change the font or the size to what suits ME :)

Lee

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation? I'd rather have rivers or a ragged edge than have to start a word, keep it in mind, and finish it on the next line.

Lee

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation?

No. I loath it - I find it interrupts the flow of the text. I also seem to remember being taught back in school to never, ever, ever ever hyphenate words at a line break, and it's certainly something I've never seen in a printed book/novel.

And on that note, how did all you typography enthusiasts manage when all we had was paper books - I mean, not only a fixed font, but a fixed size as well! :eek:

In all seriousness, there are other things that need 'fixing' far more urgently in eBooks than any typographic niceties - probably not that long a list, but Geographic restrictions and DRM are right there at the top, IMHO...

Cheers, Pete.

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation? I'd rather have rivers or a ragged edge than have to start a word, keep it in mind, and finish it on the next line.

Lee


I prefer ragged right edge rather than hyphenation -- and no weird vast white-spacing just to get full justification!

For you. Don't assume I want hyphenation, I absolutely detest it...

I am with you here. I don't care much for even blocks of text, so unbroken words are a better experience to me.

We're all agreed, to some extent, that typography matters; for some of us, it matters more than for others. Typography, as an art, is plainly absent from non-pdf documents on e-ink devices. Poetry, for example, is pretty much impossible on a Kindle.

I'm waiting for digital poetry to hit its stride--to use the features available in screen-based displays and reflowable text to find new ways to share messages that can't be done with traditional print. (Um. But we can skip the blinking & scrolling marquee poetry, okay?)

In the meantime, print poetry translates badly to most ebook readers. Kipling's not easy, and Cummings is right out.

The second part of his article is about doing something "more" with the residual meta-data (ie not the author's work but your own reading experience). He goes on to suggest that the highlights of 10,000 readers should be linked together to produce "hot spots" of not-to-be-missed passages; or that we ought to be able to see the highlights of one famous author's private notes reading a second famous author.

While I have no interest in reading-in-general being a social experience, I think I understand some of what he means. Booksharing is an essential part of print reading, and visiting a bookstore in order to just talk to the salesperson or other customers helped a lot of us sort out our taste in books. Chatting about favorite passages or most important plot points is part of what book clubs do. And all that could be switched to digital, not require leaving your house. (Which has both pros & cons.)

I don't want to see everyone's favorite passage during a first readthrough of a book--but if I had a way to participate in a "discussion" afterward, by highlighting what I liked best and throwing strikethrough on the parts I thought were boring, that'd be fun. And there's no reason we can't have that, eventually; no reason we can't have "this book is recommended by a dozen people who loved the same passages you did in this other book."

Am I the only person not in love with hyphenation? I'd rather have rivers or a ragged edge than have to start a word, keep it in mind, and finish it on the next line.

People who need really large text to read comfortably are most likely to want hyphenation; if you're only getting 4-6 words on a line, bumping that down to 3 because "understand" wasn't split into "under- stand" can be annoying.

Most problems with hyphenation are from *bad* hyphenation. When it's done right, it shouldn't be noticeable.

I like to think that I have some basic appreciation of typography, and would like to see improvement not only on ereaders but in web browsers as well. However this introduces complexity both for content creators, web/ebook designers, software engineers, and readers (to the extent they are given control over presentation). So there's a cost to it. But right now, we really don't even have choices.

The market for ebooks is not mature and pervasive enough yet to differentiate between consumers who expect more in terms of typography (and ability to accumulate and share metadata) and those who don't. We're still in a 'least common denominator world, where mass market concerns seem to dominate (pricing, availability etc.). Hopefully that will change as the market expands, and we'll start to see more quality-related concerns getting attention, some vendors will start to raise the bar, and the choices will begin to appear.

The main problem with eBook on current readers is the lack of hyphenation.

Again, that's your preference, but it is only a preference. If a reader hyphenated and this couldn't be disabled, I wouldn't buy it.

I'm definitely in the ragged-right camp on this one, although I understand the need for hyphenation when using reflowable formats. I think his point is not so much pro-hyphenation as hyphenation is a necessary evil, so let's get it right when we do it.

No. I loath it - I find it interrupts the flow of the text. I also seem to remember being taught back in school to never, ever, ever ever hyphenate words at a line break, and it's certainly something I've never seen in a printed book/novel.


Then you have not looked properly. I just took the first book I found and that had hyphenated words at the line break. The rule I have seen is to never hyphenate a word that is hyphenated normally at a line break since then you get an ambiguity.

I'm definitely in the ragged-right camp on this one, although I understand the need for hyphenation when using reflowable formats. I think his point is not so much pro-hyphenation as hyphenation is a necessary evil, so let's get it right when we do it.

Even if you use ragged right it is necessary to hyphenate since you will get too much raggedness if you do not hyphenate.

Hyphoraggation..... did I just coin a new word????????

Again, that's your preference, but it is only a preference. If a reader hyphenated and this couldn't be disabled, I wouldn't buy it.

So what's wrong with hyphenation?

I'm dyslexic, and read it as two words. I have to stop reading and sound the word out.

which are addressed with several- want to say many but it doesnt sound right- current ebook readers. These guys all think kindle and nook and ibooks are the only game in town. want to fix ereaders? Start reviewing the ones out here that get it right already.

Agreed, a wasted opportunity to talk about what readers have done it right.

I'm pretty indifferent on ragged right edge (with or without hyphenation) or justified--as long as it's not crazy justification that will say stretch one word out to fill the page etc.

I've seldom seen issues with the justification on my Kindle, pretty much looks as good as justification in paper books. More issues with typos, missing spaces so two words are together etc.

Then you have not looked properly. I just took the first book I found and that had hyphenated words at the line break.

Well, you might want to define 'properly'; did I look through all 2000-odd titles we have in our collection before posting that? Ummm, no, but I checked out a few from a variety of publishers, genres, and decades, both in hardback and paperback, and none of them were hyphenated at a line break.<shrug>

Out of interest, did you check more than the one you found at first try?

Cheers, Pete.

Well, you might want to define 'properly'; did I look through all 2000-odd titles we have in our collection before posting that? Ummm, no, but I checked out a few from a variety of publishers, genres, and decades, both in hardback and paperback, and none of them were hyphenated at a line break.<shrug>

Out of interest, did you check more than the one you found at first try?

Cheers, Pete.

I just looked d throgh a couple until I found the first one. Now I took three books from the shelf. All three used hyphenation at line breaks (Bruce Sterling: The Artificial Kid, Stableford: Balance of Power and Swanwick: Jack Faust).

The next book I checked only seemed to hyphenate at line break for words like hidey-holes. That is a case I think you should not hyphenate at line breaks since it is ambigious.

So I have a hard time finding a book that do not hyphenate at line breaks.

If a book is justified to the right it needs to use line breaks. It's not optional otherwise your book would look like... well, like something not good. ;)
If a book is not justified to the right it will probably not use hyphentation also.