Looking for epub rendered as well as a pdf

[netseeker]

Meanwhile i got my PRS-505 back. (note to myself: it's time for a second eReader)
The ePub looks good and all formulas are displayed well and zoomable. The graph (the only SVG in the ePub) is displayed well but zooming behaves a little bit strange: The graph doesn't really zoom but in landscape mode it's being displayed bigger.

The biggest difference to ADE is the left-justified text on the PRS-505. (Sony, please publish a Firmware-Update soon)

[All4Fun]

I actually had an epub version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" which, to me, showcases epub quite well and IMO would rival pdf in presentation which I was looking for in the first place.

EDIT: Nope, I didn't get it off of feedbooks. Not well illustrated there. I may have gotten it here in the MR library and converted to epub. Let me just attach the file...it's about 1MB. If I'm breaking any rules, please do let me know.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

I actually had an epub version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

This is probably the version from the Adobe Sample eBook Library.

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

This is probably the version from the Adobe Sample eBook Library.

Wallcraft, you are right. That's exactly where it's from. As a matter of fact, you posted this link in another thread here that I must have grabbed it from come to think of it. Thanks for jogging my memory.

[Jellby]

Good PDFs are designed to look great at a single page size. Everything fits on the page, the paragraphs are broken at the right places, there are no widows or orphans, illustrations or tables appear where they are needed, vertical spacing is adjusted to make the page look right, etc.

Good ePUBs are made to look good at every (most) page sizes, font sizes, etc. The page won't look "perfect", but it will be good enough and, more important, it will look equally good if you cange the size, the preferences, etc. And you could even disable illustrations

For your own use (fixed parameters), there is nothing you can do with ePUB that you cannot do with PDF, and there are things you can do with PDF that are not possible with ePUB.

As soon as you send the files to others, since they'll have different tastes, needs, devices, etc., there are things they can do to the ePUB that they cannot do to the PDF.

[All4Fun]

Thank you Jellby for taking the time to explain the benefits of each format and the other advantages of using epub. I did understand most of this but you explain it a lot more eloquently and without some of the disdain that I typically see when pdf is brought up.

As a reasonably new user to this forum, when I joined, most of my ebooks were in pdf format only because that's what I knew. To me, as I was able to read them, they were ebooks. I quickly got versed in the different ebook formats and will avoid pdfs where it makes sense or when I have no other choice.

Sometimes I see authors offer their books on this forum for free only in pdf format and I think "Thank you" but then I see some responses "slamming" the author/publisher for only offering it in pdf format. As a new user to this forum and perhaps as feedback, I think there's a better approach and, Jellby, I think the approach you've taken for explaining the differences is the right one for perhaps explaining this to budding authors.

If I've been intimidated about talking about pdfs on MR, there's definitely been a reason for it.

Now that I got that off my chest, we can get back to our regularly scheduled program.

[zelda_pinwheel]

yes, thanks jellby very much for that comparison and explanation. i've added it to the "what's so great about epub" thread since it's a question which comes up often.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

Thank you Jellby for taking the time to explain the benefits of each format and the other advantages of using epub. I did understand most of this but you explain it a lot more eloquently and without some of the disdain that I typically see when pdf is brought up.

As a reasonably new user to this forum, when I joined, most of my ebooks were in pdf format only because that's what I knew. To me, as I was able to read them, they were ebooks. I quickly got versed in the different ebook formats and will avoid pdfs where it makes sense or when I have no other choice.

Sometimes I see authors offer their books on this forum for free only in pdf format and I think "Thank you" but then I see some responses "slamming" the author/publisher for only offering it in pdf format. As a new user to this forum and perhaps as feedback, I think there's a better approach and, Jellby, I think the approach you've taken for explaining the differences is the right one for perhaps explaining this to budding authors.

If I've been intimidated about talking about pdfs on MR, there's definitely been a reason for it.

Now that I got that off my chest, we can get back to our regularly scheduled program.

all4fun, you are right that people tend to get very cranky about pdf-format books ! this is because often publishers make free pdfs available which are formatted for a much larger page than a 6" screen can comfortably display. although some devices can "reflow" pdfs to enlarge the text and give a more comfortable reading experience, when you do this, the original formatting is lost, and the result usually looks pretty terrible (ironic, i know). pdfs are also more difficult to convert to other formats. this tends to frustrate a lot of people when they see a free ebook made available only in pdf format ; but you are absolutely right that it's much more constructive to talk about the different strengths of each format (pdf does have many strengths, and for some specific purposes it's the best format) and encourage publishers to make several formats available (including epub) whenever possible rather than to get angry, which i'm sure you're not the only one to find intimidating. thanks for bringing up the subject for discussion.

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

Sometimes I see authors offer their books on this forum for free only in pdf format and I think "Thank you" but then I see some responses "slamming" the author/publisher for only offering it in pdf format. As a new user to this forum and perhaps as feedback, I think there's a better approach and, Jellby, I think the approach you've taken for explaining the differences is the right one for perhaps explaining this to budding authors.

While not trying to excuse the more robust comments, there's certainly a lot of frustration from eBook Reader owners when we get offered PDFs such as the one shown in the screen-shot below - to my mind what's best (nice looking content) and what's worst about PDFs (basically unreadable on a 6" screen) on one page...

[All4Fun]

It's become very clear to me that the best way for an author/publisher to reach out to the widest variety of ebook devices is to use a reflowable format such as epub. I'm just not convinced that authors/publishers generally know this. Should they? Yes. Do they? I'm not so sure.

If one leaves this forum and goes elsewhere, generally speaking, the predominant format discussed will not be epub or the other reflowable formats. So, educating people and making them aware of the alternative reflowable formats is what's necessary.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

It's become very clear to me that the best way for an author/publisher to reach out to the widest variety of ebook devices is to use a reflowable format such as epub. I'm just not convinced that authors/publishers generally know this. Should they? Yes. Do they? I'm not so sure.

If one leaves this forum and goes elsewhere, generally speaking, the predominant format discussed will not be epub or the other reflowable formats. So, educating people and making them aware of the alternative reflowable formats is what's necessary.

absolutely agreed. luckily, publishers *are* becoming more and more aware of epub and the specific requirements of epublishing. more and more of them are adopting epub as their delivered format ; in fact a large number of publishers already have begun or have plans to begin supporting epub. in this post there is a link to a video presentation which shows the spectacular growth of epub over just one year, which is really encouraging.

you can help educate authors and publishers ; if a book you're interested in is not available in epub format, write to the publisher and request it. ask them if they have plans to support epub, and tell them it's important to you. stay polite, of course ! but the more they see readers asking for epub, the more likely they are to improve their offer of epub books.

[JSWolf]

if they'd offer PDF formatted properly for a 6" screen as well as one for letter size, then there would be a lot less of an issue with PDF. But since they only seem to offer letter sized PDF, there there is an issue. One of the main issues is that without offering a suitable format for the people you are trying to target, it looks to us like the author and/or publisher just doesn't get eBooks or doesn't really care about eBooks. And then it just sort of turns us off to the author's book.