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Originally Posted by GreenMonkey
If it's just plaintext, then why can't I slap a .mobi onto my PC and just open it? It's got an icky layer of DRM around it, that's why. And I thought EPUB was mostly xhtml...
I know this is circumvent-able (at the moment) by us tech-saavy, but still. Not just an open standard, precisely.
Still, ebooks have plenty of variants - I ended up with a Topaz book once, and Kobo has their kepub variant (which I don't know a lot about, but fear of getting it has stopped me from buying books from them).
Something to think about also - since people continue to buy DRM, and mostly Amazon, nothing is stopping Amazon from tightening up the DRM down the road - so this easy convertibility/access could dry up.
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The main problem with plain text is the lack of any formatting at all. No italics, bold, larger or smaller text.
The reason I like books based on html (and an epub can be opened up to see all the files inside are just html) is because in a worst case scenario I can always go back to the text.
Html has changed quite a bit since it's inception. A minor example, you now have to open a paragraph and close it.
The irritants to most html generated by programs such as word processors or pdf unpackers is that the html is "bad". Not following rules of opening paragraphs, closing them. things like <i>thi</i><i>s is an ex</i><i>ple sentence</i> making me crazy lol.