Do you consider PDF to be a legitimate "e-book" format? Why or why not? - Page 6

Steven Lyle Jordan · 01-22-2008, 10:32 AM

@Neko, good point. I was thinking primarily about textbooks, but manga (and other graphic novels and magazines) often depend on their overall page layout, and PDF is one of the best formats suited for that.

DaleDe · 01-22-2008, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

If a PDF is tagged (i.e. it is reflowable) that means it's basically two documents. A "rendered" version that has all the typographical niceties of PDF and a tagged version that supports reflow and has a subset of the features of HTML. The tagged or reflowable version will not support the nice features of rendered or untagged PDF. In fact, it will not even support the features of HTML+CSS. So with a tagged PDF what you get is a file that is inferior in terms of "rendered layout" to an untagged PDF and that is inferior to HTML+CSS as a reflowable format. So why bother with tagged PDFs?

I believe this is an error. The tagged PDF is a superset, not a subset. Tagging can be added after the fact by some tools (ActiveSync) and can even be done on the fly (PalmPDF) without altering the document. Tagging can be turned off dynamically when needed and the original document will be displayed looking exactly what it looked like when it was not tagged at all. Tagging is the best of both worlds. You can read the data and when it is important to see the layout you can switch to this mode.

Dale

NatCh · 01-22-2008, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Are we only counting text-based books here? I.e., what about manga?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

@Neko, good point. I was thinking primarily about textbooks, but manga (and other graphic novels and magazines) often depend on their overall page layout, and PDF is one of the best formats suited for that.

I agree completely!

There's no way that graphics-based books would work in any sort of reflowable format, PDF or something very much like it is clearly the winner on that score.

Lemurion · 01-22-2008, 12:17 PM

As a general rule, I find PDFs one of the worst formats for reading anything on a screen. I buy HERO system rulebooks in PDF format and generally print them out if I intend to use the material with any frequency.

Graphic material (Comics and Manga) are much better served by CBR/CBZ formats than by PDF, the images are usually crisper and more legible.

Having said all that, I don't think it's really an illegitimate format, just ill-suited for the majority of my e-book reading needs.

kovidgoyal · 01-22-2008, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I believe this is an error. The tagged PDF is a superset, not a subset. Tagging can be added after the fact by some tools (ActiveSync) and can even be done on the fly (PalmPDF) without altering the document. Tagging can be turned off dynamically when needed and the original document will be displayed looking exactly what it looked like when it was not tagged at all. Tagging is the best of both worlds. You can read the data and when it is important to see the layout you can switch to this mode.

Dale

No tagging does not work automatically for all but the simplest of PDF documents (and those documents can be represented perfectly in a reflowable format). See for example

http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acr...andingtags.php
http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/...ContentID=6067

DaleDe · 01-22-2008, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No tagging does not work automatically for all but the simplest of PDF documents (and those documents can be represented perfectly in a reflowable format). See for example

http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acr...andingtags.php
http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/...ContentID=6067

I would agree that tagging after the fact is not nearly as good as intelligent tagging but that was not my point. My point was that adding tagging does not decrease the usability and intelligence of the document itself as your post implied or actually directly stated.

I write my documents in Framemaker and always generate tagged PDF's. These are intelligent tags as they are done in the source and in no way detract from the intelligence in the document itself. It displays perfectly in full page display mode and it flows very well in reflow mode although the shrinking of some images can make the results not quite as good. I can, of course, switch back to full page whenever needed to see the original structure.

I still contend that the reason everybody complains about PDF viewing is mostly because of the deplorable PDF viewers that they are using to try and view the stuff. E-Ink itself is not as suited to scrolling and panning but that is a different issue.

Dale

kovidgoyal · 01-22-2008, 02:33 PM

No my post stated that tagging a PDF document essentially creates two versions of the document

1) The untagged version. This is a "rendered" layout and will not reflow
2) The tagged version. This is a reflowable layout, but as a reflowable layout, it is inferior to dedicated reflowable layouts like HTML+CSS

You might as well think of a tagged PDF as a container for two versions of the document.

DaleDe · 01-22-2008, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No my post stated that tagging a PDF document essentially creates two versions of the document

1) The untagged version. This is a "rendered" layout and will not reflow
2) The tagged version. This is a reflowable layout, but as a reflowable layout, it is inferior to dedicated reflowable layouts like HTML+CSS

You might as well think of a tagged PDF as a container for two versions of the document.

I do not think about it like that at all. I think of it as one document, which is what it is, with added metadata that is ignored when it is rendered on a page by page data but used when it is reflowed. The metadata includes enough information to provide the CSS data but better. It is tagged with the paragraph style and overrides for each paragraph in the document. This metadata allows a smart program to determine the best way to render that paragraph to communicate the information on the target output device.

There are certainly not two copies of the document in a container or it would be much bigger.

Dale

kovidgoyal · 01-22-2008, 07:13 PM

The important point here is that the two modes restrict each other.

A tagged PDF cannot support all the typographical niceties of an untagged PDF, nor can it support all the features of a dedicated reflowable format. Tagged PDF is a compromise that adobe bolted on to PDF to try and make it work for accessibility and ebook applications. Why do you think Adobe is developing epub if tagged PDF was any good as an ebook format?

DaleDe · 01-23-2008, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The important point here is that the two modes restrict each other.

A tagged PDF cannot support all the typographical niceties of an untagged PDF, nor can it support all the features of a dedicated reflowable format. Tagged PDF is a compromise that adobe bolted on to PDF to try and make it work for accessibility and ebook applications. Why do you think Adobe is developing epub if tagged PDF was any good as an ebook format?

To sell a program to make the files. Insight I believe. epub was not developed by Adobe but a standard that grew out of the original Rocket eBook format source files which are also used by Microsoft and to some extent by Mobi although they came late and only bolted on support. Digital Editions will also read pdf by the way. I am not saying the PDF is the greatest eBook format in existence. I am just say that it can be made to work but the current software in eBook devices doesn't even try.

There are lots of eBook formats with significant problems technically but they are still eBook formats. PalmDoc is really poor but it still popular. TXT is a poor eBook format also but look at how much effort there is making books in that format.

Dale

kovidgoyal · 01-23-2008, 12:30 AM

As Natch pointed out before, this thread isn't about whether PDF can be made to work as an ebook format, but whether it is a legitimate ebook format. To me that means asking whether it is a format in which ebooks should continue to be produced. To that question my answer is, not unless you have really special needs.

Steven Lyle Jordan · 01-23-2008, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

As Natch pointed out before, this thread isn't about whether PDF can be made to work as an ebook format, but whether it is a legitimate ebook format. To me that means asking whether it is a format in which ebooks should continue to be produced. To that question my answer is, not unless you have really special needs.

"Special needs" like clearly viewing graphics, for instance?

Generally, when I read e-books, I read, and occasionally look at graphics, and sometimes I bookmark things. PDF serves those needs fine, and I don't think they're all that unusual.

And I think PDF should also get major points due to its ubiquitous nature... more than any other e-book format, PDFs can be read on most any device, large and small, on most any OS including those of proprietary hardware, from old to new documents and old to new systems. That's more widespread than Mobi. That's the kind of ubiquitousness ePub drools about. And it's already here. That counts for a lot.

yvanleterrible · 01-23-2008, 10:00 AM

@Kovid

When a reading device, such as the Sony, analyses a file for display, how does it proceed? Does it need to have the software that created each file type onboard? Does it proceed the same way with each file type?

tompe · 01-23-2008, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

"Special needs" like clearly viewing graphics, for instance?

Generally, when I read e-books, I read, and occasionally look at graphics, and sometimes I bookmark things. PDF serves those needs fine, and I don't think they're all that unusual.

And I when I read look up words in a dictionary and at least with the Gen3 that does not work for PDF. And if I had a Kindle I would be searching the text and I suppose that does not work with PDF either.

It is strange to see PDF as one format since how it is encoded decide what you can do with the document.

HarryT · 01-23-2008, 10:19 AM

My take on the question:

No, PDF is not an eBook format.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

To me, an eBook format, by definition, should be "aware" of the basic structural elements of a book - titles, lines, words, paragraphs. When you change the font size, it needs to be able to reflow lines and paragraphs. It should be aware of the concept of a "word", preferably allowing you to search for it, or look up its definition in a dictionary.

PDF files do none of that. PDF was designed as an electronic representation of a printed page. A PDF files doesn't know about lines, or words, or paragraphs. All it contains is instructions of the form "draw the letter 'A' in such-and-such a font at such-and-such a position on the page". The only structural "unit" in a PDF file is the letter (or other graphical element) and the page. No words, no lines, no paragraphs, no titles, no chapters; in short, none of the elements which make a book.

There are indeed a great many books which can be obtained in the form of PDF files, but to my mind, PDF files is what they are, not eBooks.

So, for these reasons, I vote "no". PDF files are not eBooks, even if they do happen to contain the pages of a book.

View Poll Results: Do you consider PDF to be a legitimate "e-book" format? (please elaborate b
Yes	37	38.14%
No	55	56.70%
I haven't formed an opinion on the matter, but would like to see the poll results	5	5.15%
Voters: 97. You may not vote on this poll

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01-22-2008, 10:32 AM	#76
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	@Neko, good point. I was thinking primarily about textbooks, but manga (and other graphic novels and magazines) often depend on their overall page layout, and PDF is one of the best formats suited for that.

01-22-2008, 12:17 PM	#79
Lemurion eReader Posts: 2,750 Karma: 4968470 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: Note 5; PW3; Nook HD+; ChuWi Hi12; iPad	As a general rule, I find PDFs one of the worst formats for reading anything on a screen. I buy HERO system rulebooks in PDF format and generally print them out if I intend to use the material with any frequency. Graphic material (Comics and Manga) are much better served by CBR/CBZ formats than by PDF, the images are usually crisper and more legible. Having said all that, I don't think it's really an illegitimate format, just ill-suited for the majority of my e-book reading needs.

01-22-2008, 02:33 PM	#82
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,019 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	No my post stated that tagging a PDF document essentially creates two versions of the document 1) The untagged version. This is a "rendered" layout and will not reflow 2) The tagged version. This is a reflowable layout, but as a reflowable layout, it is inferior to dedicated reflowable layouts like HTML+CSS You might as well think of a tagged PDF as a container for two versions of the document.

01-22-2008, 07:13 PM	#84
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,019 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	The important point here is that the two modes restrict each other. A tagged PDF cannot support all the typographical niceties of an untagged PDF, nor can it support all the features of a dedicated reflowable format. Tagged PDF is a compromise that adobe bolted on to PDF to try and make it work for accessibility and ebook applications. Why do you think Adobe is developing epub if tagged PDF was any good as an ebook format?

01-23-2008, 12:30 AM	#86
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,019 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	As Natch pointed out before, this thread isn't about whether PDF can be made to work as an ebook format, but whether it is a legitimate ebook format. To me that means asking whether it is a format in which ebooks should continue to be produced. To that question my answer is, not unless you have really special needs.

01-23-2008, 10:00 AM	#88
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	@Kovid When a reading device, such as the Sony, analyses a file for display, how does it proceed? Does it need to have the software that created each file type onboard? Does it proceed the same way with each file type?

01-23-2008, 10:19 AM	#90
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	My take on the question: No, PDF is not an eBook format. Let me explain what I mean by that. To me, an eBook format, by definition, should be "aware" of the basic structural elements of a book - titles, lines, words, paragraphs. When you change the font size, it needs to be able to reflow lines and paragraphs. It should be aware of the concept of a "word", preferably allowing you to search for it, or look up its definition in a dictionary. PDF files do none of that. PDF was designed as an electronic representation of a printed page. A PDF files doesn't know about lines, or words, or paragraphs. All it contains is instructions of the form "draw the letter 'A' in such-and-such a font at such-and-such a position on the page". The only structural "unit" in a PDF file is the letter (or other graphical element) and the page. No words, no lines, no paragraphs, no titles, no chapters; in short, none of the elements which make a book. There are indeed a great many books which can be obtained in the form of PDF files, but to my mind, PDF files is what they are, not eBooks. So, for these reasons, I vote "no". PDF files are not eBooks, even if they do happen to contain the pages of a book.

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