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Old 06-19-2010, 06:31 PM   #6
Worldwalker
Curmudgeon
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Posts: 3,085
Karma: 722357
Join Date: Feb 2010
Device: PRS-505
Remember that PDF's whole purpose is to present a page in exactly the same form no matter what it's viewed/printed on. Most of the time, that's a good thing; when you're transferring documents, you don't want them going and reformatting themselves because they think your monitor is a bit too tight around the collar. When you're trying to read that document on a PRS-300, or something even smaller, it becomes a bad thing. A Really Bad Thing. It's like looking through the wrong end of the telescope, and very few ebook devices can handle PDFs at all well. Sony's readers are most definitely not any of them.

I usually download my O'Reilly books in both epub and pdf. The former is for my 505, the latter is for my computer. That way, I get the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, probably due to the tight formatting (tables, etc.) of many technical books, not all of them are available in epub. But I'm still hoping ... and since I bought my books from a bookseller who considers me their customer, not their enemy, if they do convert those holdout pdfs to epub, I can just go grab the format I need.

It's not which DRM a file is locked in that makes the difference -- it's the native format of the file. If you're reading something on your desktop, or even your laptop, PDF is ideal (though, of course, since it's DRM-locked, you're pretty restricted in what you can actually read it on). But if you're going to be reading it on a 5" device, or even a 6" device like the 505, 600, etc., epub is the way to go. Actually, for anything where exact layout isn't an issue (most fiction, for instance) it's probably safer to avoid pdf just out of paranoia -- it doesn't reflow, or reflow well, at the best of times.
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